Novelist as a Vocation(10)

Some see this as an affront to our national language. In fact, I have been criticized on precisely those grounds. Language, though, is tough and resilient, a tenacity backed up by a long history. Its autonomy cannot be lost or seriously damaged, however roughly it is handled. It is the right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language and expand the range of its effectiveness. Without that adventurous spirit, nothing new can ever be born. In a certain way, I continue to regard Japanese as a kind of tool, even today. I would even say that explorations into its “toolness” may lead to the regeneration of the Japanese language.

At any rate, I rewrote the “rather boring” novel I had just finished from top to bottom in the new style that I had just developed. Although the story line remained more or less intact, the mode of expression was entirely different. Different, too, was its impact on the reader. It was, of course, the short novel Hear the Wind Sing. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the way it turned out. When I reread it, I found it immature and riddled with faults. Only twenty to thirty percent of what I was trying to say came across. Yet it was my first novel, and I had managed to write in a form that somehow worked, so I was left with the feeling that I had taken a big first step. To put it another way, I felt as though I had realized some of the promise carried to me by my “epiphany.”

Writing in my new style felt more like performing music than composing literature, a feeling that stays with me today. It was as if the words were coming through my body instead of from my head. Sustaining the rhythm, finding the coolest chords, trusting in the power of improvisation—it was tremendously exciting. When I sat down at the kitchen table each night and went back to work on my novel (if that’s what it was) using my new style, I felt like I was holding a new, cutting-edge tool in my hands. Boy oh boy, was it fun! And it filled the spiritual void that had loomed with the approach of my thirtieth birthday.

This radical shift would be more apparent if I could compare Hear the Wind Sing with its “rather boring” predecessor, but, unfortunately, I threw the latter away. Nor do I have any clear memory of what it was like. I know now that I should have held on to it, but it was useless as far as I could see, so I threw it in the trash without a second thought. Now all I can recall is that it wasn’t much fun to write. Hardly surprising, given the sort of style I was using. The problem was that it had not flowed naturally. Writing in that style had been like exercising in clothes that didn’t fit.



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It was a sunny Sunday morning in spring when I got the call from an editor at the literary journal Gunzo telling me that Hear the Wind Sing had been short-listed for their Prize for New Writers. Almost a year had passed since the season opener at Jingu Stadium, and I had already turned thirty. It was around eleven a.m., but I was still fast asleep, having worked very late the night before. I picked up the receiver, but I was so groggy I had no idea at first who was on the other end or what he was trying to say. To tell the truth, by that time I had quite forgotten having sent Hear the Wind Sing to Gunzo. Once I had finished the manuscript and put it in someone else’s hands, my desire to write had completely subsided. Composing it had been, so to speak, an act of defiance—I had written it very easily, just as it came to me—so the idea that it might make the short list had never occurred to me. In fact, I had sent them my only copy. If they hadn’t selected it, it probably would have vanished forever. I probably never would have written another novel. Life is strange, when you think about it.

The editor told me there were five finalists, including me. I was surprised. But I was also very sleepy, so the reality of what had happened didn’t really sink in. I got out of bed, washed, dressed, and went out for a walk with my wife. Just when we were passing Sendagaya Elementary School on Meiji Avenue, I noticed a carrier pigeon hiding in the shrubbery. I saw that it seemed to have a broken wing, so I picked it up. A metal tag was affixed to its leg. Cradling it in my hands, I carried it to the small police station in Omotesando, adjacent to the Dojunkai-Aoyama Apartments (the present home of Omotesando Hills). As I walked along the side streets of Harajuku, the warmth of the wounded pigeon sank into my hands. I felt it quivering. That Sunday was bright and clear, and the trees, the buildings, and the shop windows sparkled in the spring sunlight.

That’s when it hit me. I was going to win the prize. And I was going to go on to become a novelist who would enjoy some degree of success. It was an audacious presumption, but for some reason I was sure at that moment that it would happen. Completely sure. Not in a theoretical way, but directly and intuitively.



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I can still remember, with total clarity, how I felt when whatever it was came fluttering down into my hands that day thirty years ago on the grass behind the outfield fence at Jingu Stadium; and I recall just as clearly the warmth of the wounded pigeon in those same hands that spring afternoon a year later, near Sendagaya Elementary School. I always call up those sensations when I think about what it means to write a novel. Such tactile memories have taught me to trust in that something I carry within me and to dream of the possibilities it offers. How wonderful it is that these sensations still reside within me!



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There is no basic change today—I feel the same pleasure and excitement I felt when I wrote my first novel. I wake up early, brew fresh coffee in the kitchen, pour some in a big mug, sit down at my desk, and boot up my computer (there are times, I must admit, when I miss the days of manuscript sheets and my fat Montblanc fountain pen). Then I sit there and muse about what to write that day. Such moments are pure bliss. To tell the truth, I have never found writing painful. Neither (thankfully) have I ever found myself unable to write. What’s the point of writing, anyway, if you’re not enjoying it? I can’t get my head around the idea of “the suffering writer.” Basically, I think, novels should emerge in a spontaneous flow.