村上さんのところ

by Haruki Murakami, 村上春樹, フジモト マサル (Illustrator)

期間限定サイト「村上さんのところ」上で、村上春樹が3か月半にわたって続けた回答は、じつに3000問以上！　その中から、笑って泣いて考えさせる「名問答」を400～500問を村上さんご自身がセレクトし、可愛くてちょっとシュールなフジモトマサルのイラストマンガ約50点を加えた待望の書籍版！

Genres: Japanese Literature, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 24, 2015

About the author

Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009–10); the last was ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun's survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for his use of magical realist elements. His official website cites Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has named Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including First Person Singular (2020), and non-fiction works including Underground (1997), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), a memoir about his experience as a long distance runner.
His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection The Elephant Vanishes (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre.

Reviews

[Yuko Shimizu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of 37,465 questions people around the world sent to Mr. Murakami on the special site that was open for 3 and half months, he had read ALL of the questions sent, answered 3,716 of them, and there are 473 selected questions and answers in the book edition (and all 3,716 in e-book edition which I did not read).
I was not expecting much other than just a fun pastime, but I was pleasantly surprised how I got into it and how much I enjoyed it.
His answers are often not the typical advise column answers, but also can get very philosophical and makes us think. By reading 473 of the answers, readers can get pretty good sense of who Haruki Murakami is, both as a writer, and as a human being (and my impression is: more positive than ever!).
Living outside of Japan for more than 15 years, I got a glimpse of the common issues Japanese people face now a days, in politics, school system, work, and attitude toward life, which were interesting to learn on their own.
However, considering there are many books of his that haven't been translated into foreign languages yet, mainly essays and some collections of short stories, I kind of doubt this book would be translated into English any time soon.
Foreign readers, don't be discouraged. There are many more books by him waiting to be translated into your languages.

[Makiko · Rating 4 out of 5]

"誰の心の中にも闇のようなものがあります。…その闇にも「良い闇」と「悪い闇」があります。闇が全部悪いものではありません。役にたつ闇もあります。役に立つ細菌がいるのと同じように。あなたはその「よい闇」をうまく味方につける必要があります。闇がまったくなれけば、それはそれで人間は薄っぺらになってしまいます。しかし悪い闇に利用されると、人は多くの過ちを犯します。注意深くなること、光のありかを常に頭の中に入れておくこと、あなたなりの個人的護符（タリスマン）をみつけること、それが大事になります。 "

村上春樹の本は、もしかしたら小説よりもエッセイ・ノンフィクションのほうが好きかもしれない。なんていっても彼の人間性がストレートに伝わってくるから。でも、このQ&A に出てくる彼の小説のタイトルを見ていたら、なんだかまた読んでみたくなった。

[yumihcho42 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nini ニニ was reading this and she referred it as "a collection of Murakami's answers to life, or, to questions raised by random people on the internet"

some music lover/husband/father who's born in the 40s (音楽さえあればご飯三杯はいける妻子持ち) said he's been listening to the old songs from his youth and find it hard to listen to new music - he was wondering if that's a good thing.

Murakami: 要为听新音乐这件事付出努力！

*unexpectedly inspiring*
*要为获得新的生命养料这些事情付出努力！*

[Ivan K. Wu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this at the Kinokuniya bookstore when I was in New York last month. During the spring of 2015, Murakami responded to 3500 questions from his readers on a variety of subjects, the best of which are compiled into this book. The questions are often more interesting than his answers. You can feel a strange undercurrent that runs through all the questions. Confusion. Dissatisfaction.

"Is this it?"

I think if I boiled it down, that was the question that everybody was trying to ask in their own way. How to be okay with the fact that we're all born to lose.