꿈에서 만나요

by Haruki Murakami, Shigesato Itoi, 양혜윤 (Translator)

Genres: Japan, Short Stories, Japanese Literature

278 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 1981

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

[Gemma · Rating 5 out of 5]

*참고 : 한국 책은 두개의 제목을 가지고 있다. [꿈에서 만나요] 와 [소울메이트].
처음에 읽고 나서 느낀 감정은 때로는 재밌고 공감이 가다가 갑자기 작가가 한 헛소리에 헷갈리기만 하고 자기 주장과 상상이 강한 글만 쓴 것 같아서 내 마음속으로 10점 만점에 5점만 주고 싶은 얼떨떨한 감정이였다.

책의 장르는 '(일본)소설'이다. 소설이라고 틀을 정하고 생각해보니 '이게 무슨 짬뽕같은 내용이냐!' 라고 나올정도로 각각 장들에 나오는 내용들은 정말이나 뒤죽박죽이다.
근데 어라라 본문에 적혀있는 작가, 무라카미 하루키,의 말을 다시 읽어보니 "[소울메이트]는 단편집도 아니고, 에세이집도 아닙니다. 그렇다고 해서 잡다한 원고의 모음이냐 하면 이도 아닙니다. 굳이 말하자면 이상한 책이랄 수 있지요. 생각해보면 이것은 시작부터 매우 특이한 책이었습니다. 외래어를 죽 늘어놓고 그에 대해 저(무라카미)와 이토이 씨 둘이서 돌아가면서 이야기하는 에세이 같은 것을 만든다니..., 지금 생각해 보면 상당히 독특하다고 할까, 용감하다고 할까? 어쨌든 이해하기 힘든 발상입니다." 라고 적혀있는 것이다.

나는 '에세이'라고 하면, 논문으로만 뜻을 알고 있었는데 국립국어원에 검색해 보니 아래와 같이 정의되어있었다.

에세이 「명사」
「1」 『문학』 일정한 형식을 따르지 않고 인생이나 자연 또는 일상생활에서의 느낌이나 체험을 생각나는 대로 쓴 산문 형식의 글. 보통 경수필과 중수필로 나뉘는데, 작가의 개성이나 인간성이 두드러지게 나타나며 유머, 위트, 기지가 들어 있다. =수필.
「2」 『문학』 주로 무거운 내용을 담고 있는 논리적이고 객관적인 수필. 비개성적인 것으로, 비평적 수필ㆍ과학적 수필 따위가 있다. =중수필.

그렇다면 소설은 어떤 뜻일까?

소설 「명사」
「1」 『문학』 사실 또는 작가의 상상력에 바탕을 두고 허구적으로 이야기를 꾸며 나간 산문체의 문학 양식. 일정한 구조 속에서 배경과 등장인물의 행동, 사상, 심리 따위를 통하여 인간의 모습이나 사회상을 드러낸다. 분량에 따라 장편ㆍ중편ㆍ단편으로, 내용에 따라 과학 소설ㆍ역사 소설ㆍ추리 소설 따위로 구분할 수 있으며, 옛날의 설화나 서사시 따위의 전통을 이어받아 근대에 와서 발달한 문학 양식이다. ≒이야기.

나는 저 말을 '이 책은 하나의 장르로 고정될 수 없는 무라카미와 이토이의 실험적인 소설이자, 대담집이자, 단편집이자, 에세이다.' 라고 이해했다.
마치 정사각형(꿈에서 만나요/소울메이트)이 직사각형(소설의 특정한 장르)이 될 수 있지만 직사각형은 정사각형이 될수 없는 것 처럼 말이다.

이렇게 뜻을 알고 보니까 책이 이해가 되기 시작했다. 꼭 독자를 이해시켜야 할 의무가 없는 책인 것이다. 제목 같이 꿈에서 나올법한 내용들과 때로는 앞뒤가 바뀌는 주인공과 배경들은 어떻게 보면 우리 누구나 한번쯤은 생각했다가 저 머릿속 구석 상자에 버려둔 생각들이랑 비슷하다. 그렇게 생각하자 책에 대한 부담감이 사라지고 내 좁은 시야를 넓힐 수 있는 기회를 줘서 오히려 고맙다.

[Max Bean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let’s Meet in Dreams / Let’s meet in a dream
(taken from https://letsmeetinadream.blogspot.com/ ) --> As much as has been translated by 7th June 2024.

Cool Mint Gum (MUR)
Guy stares at woman he finds attractive.

Quiz Show (ITOI)
A confused contestant wins a prize on a quiz show. The prize is the ugly princess.

Cutlets (MUR)
Terrible! Murakami talks about his preferred way to have beef cutlets prepared.

Kama Sutra (MUR)
What the absolute $%^& !?!?
A guy gets ‘a pleasure ticket’… he put it with his 78 other pleasure tickets and buries them in the garden.

Carpet (ITOI)
Terrible! Itoi discusses covering certain things… almost like a list.

Onion Soup (MUR)
Weird. Murikami talks about two consecutive encounters in the bedroom. A lion is next door making soup.

Oil Sardine (MUR)
4 lines that (I assume) don’t translate well and make no sense in English!

Elevator (MUR)
Comical. an actual ‘good’ short-short. Dreamlike. A man leaves his socks on the 413th floor. The lift doesn’t go that far. A lady with nice legs suggests he goes to her room instead. When they arrive she gives him 2000 pars of socks.

Elite (ITOI)
An elite interviews a woman for marriage. He even has the word ELITE tattooed on his back.

Etiquette (ITOI)
A dad worries that his daughter, who used to be very polite, is getting involved with ‘a bad boy’.

West Coast (ITOI)
People look stupid when posing for photos. The writer feels stupid keeping a journal (I assume).

Interior (ITOI)
Weird and just bad. People can talk about decor when entertaining guests. They can buy quirky furniture to make themselves seem interesting.

Indians (MUR)
Quite well written. A rich man talks to his friend about how he just moves money about from company A to B to C… He says he doesn’t know how much money he even has. He talks about how it’s like a scene from an old Western movie where bankers are on a steam train running from Indians. They burn all their coal, clothes, etc and so they resort to burning their money - bags of money. The short ends: “I feel like I’m being chased by Indians!”

Interview (MUR)
If this is a true story… then dear God! The interviewer is terribly unprofessional. Misquoting him and ‘misremembering’ a lot.

Encore (ITOI)
I don’t really understand it. The writer doesn’t like demanding more from musicians to ‘give the audience their money’s worth’.

[Sobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

بر صندلی ماشین تکیه داد و گفت من میترسم.
گفت من خیلی خیلی از زندگی میترسم تو درک نیمکنی.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

For all you English readers out there.
http://letsmeetinadream.blogspot.com/

[Chadded Mapipi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shigesato Itoi is quite good. I should check him out.

7/10.

[Philip Begg]

Perhaps this counts as a half read, with chapters still not translated.