Always on the side of the egg

By Haruki Murakami


I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.

Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling them. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?

My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies - which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true - the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.

Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.

So let me tell you the truth. A fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came.
The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza. The UN reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded Gaza City, many of them unarmed citizens - children and old people.

Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. This is an impression, of course, that I would not wish to give. I do not approve of any war, and I do not support any nation. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.

Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me - and especially if they are warning me - "don't go there," "don't do that," I tend to want to "go there" and "do that." It's in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.

And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.

This is not to say that I am here to deliver a political message. To make judgments about right and wrong is one of the novelist's most important duties, of course.

It is left to each writer, however, to decide upon the form in which he or she will convey those judgments to others. I myself prefer to transform them into stories - stories that tend toward the surreal. Which is why I do not intend to stand before you today delivering a direct political message.

Please do, however, allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: Rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:

"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."

Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?

What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.

This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: It is The System. The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others - coldly, efficiently, systematically.

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist's job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories - stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

My father died last year at the age of 90. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the war.

He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.

I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong - and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others' souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.

Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow The System to exploit us. We must not allow The System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: We made The System.

That is all I have to say to you.

I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.

milestone

約莫十年前
在那不太願意回想的時間點
毫無緣由
我在敦南誠品買下了人生中第一本 peggy 的書，以及第一本村上春樹的書。

當時的大叔，當然已經是個成名作家
而 peggy，是個去 MIT 念書的理工科女生
坦白說，那時會買下 peggy 的書完全只是因為那本書寫著我心目中的聖地 MIT。

想不到後面這兩位都變成了生命中那種
-可以毫不猶豫買下- 的重要人物
說起來截至目前為止
也只有這兩位符合這樣的條件。

喔，很有趣的是
peggy 也是村上大叔的粉絲
後來還寫下了跟著大叔的書一起去旅行的書
而我也跟著 peggy 的這本書去東京作了宿命性的旅行
不過那也是後記了。

這邊要說的是
在買下 MIT 那本書的同時
其實心理是很有股衝勁去 MIT 一探究竟 + 一圓夢想的
坦白說還寫過幾封信給 peggy
希望她能夠給點 什麼
信的內容幼稚到我自己都想不起來
而 peggy 也理所當然的沒有回信。

就這樣過了十年
而我的心境也從放棄（可能有偷偷怪罪為何沒人幫我一把）
到一分鐘就寫下了 bucket list，
到去了澳洲
作了很多證明自己的事情
也成功的一次，又一次，再一次的證明了自己的能耐
終於在喵去美國念書之後
把心理存了十幾年的 什麼 給整合起來
開始申請學校
而這次打算一口氣完成 2.5 個列在 bucket list 的項目。

奇蹟的是
在這個時間點 peggy 出了新書
而且分享會我還可以參加（錯失了無數次）
但仔細想想，若是之前的自己恐怕也沒那個自信去參加吧
雖然講不明白原因，但總覺得如果沒準備好就去參加的話
自己的心會被 什麼 給挖走一大塊，再也補不起來。

於是參加了台北場
又參加了小班制的竹東場
還厚著臉皮要了之前的海報
竹東場的分享會莫名變成了品酒會
居然有個朋友跟我說了好有道理的話
"因為是你參加的阿"
 （ㄟㄟ  我又沒帶酒，只是很捧場的認真喝而已）
但這六個小時的分享會
確確實實在我生命的前半場畫下了一個完美的句點。

就像那時候在澳洲的最後一天遇到第一天到澳洲的 Amanda，然後邊吃烤雞邊聊了我的澳洲經驗。
就像那時候在新加坡明明沒有計畫，跟遠在 Canberra 的 DD 聊了半小時就行程滿滿。
就像那時候澳洲回台後不想找工作，天下就掉下了叫我去綠島潛水換宿的工作。
就像在綠島的那天掃地掃到一半，NV 的 HR 打電話問我要不要去工作。

這個句點畫的真好，真圓滿。

我偷偷的從 peggy 身上擷取了些類似實現夢想  或是幻想的東西
那些不總是美好  可就是好想好想做的勇氣
為了實現
熱到把頭放進冰箱也好的無所謂。

有個假說是這樣的
"人會吸引跟自己類似味道的朋友"
所以如果發現身旁的人都很無趣
最有可能的原因就是因為自己就是那麼的無趣
反之亦然
真心希望這個假說是真的。


（2014.3.22 夜。下半場即將開始）

barista

貌似佐佐倉溜的 barista 突然談起了楊納傑克的小交響曲，
以及李斯特的巡禮之年。
喔  當然是在講 1q84 跟大叔即將問世的新書。

起因其實是我拿起了一本大叔的雜文集，
包著書套，保存的極好。
我想他該是嗅到了相同味道，
因此放心的談。

的確也是間很喜歡的咖啡店，
僅僅次於位於科技大樓站旁的 Rufous。
可我不認為他了解我翻開這本書的原因。

誰叫我一翻開，就看到大叔在寫費滋傑羅，
我逃難似的往前翻了兩頁，竟是瑞蒙卡佛。

看著我定格的 barista 談起那兩首出現在大叔書中的曲子與博客來的關係，
我小聲的回了：
"其實我從來不去追村上春樹書中提到的書或酒或音樂"
"甚至我連大叔的書都不追"

原因很簡單，
第一我很懶，
第二這些東西總會自己出現，在最正確最令人無法防備的時間點。

可惜他不懂。

＊＊＊＊＊。