|
Loading... What I talk about when I talk about running (original 2007; edition 2009)by Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator)
Work detailsWhat I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami (2007)
 shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 |  A memoir around writer's love for running, his training and participation in marathons and triathlons etc. (  ) poonamsharma | Apr 6, 2013 | Loved it. Anyone who is a fan of Murakami's fiction will find this book interesting. (  ) mjennings26 | Apr 3, 2013 | You would not expect to encounter the phrase "vicious jellyfish" in this book, but you would be wrong. A nice read, amusing at times, and because he writes from (and describes) Kauai, Cambridge, New York, and Japan, I actually felt like I'd been somewhere (other than the subway) when I put it down. ( ) JennyArch | Apr 3, 2013 | Very simple and unpretentious but inspiring (and not in the smurfy way). ( ) JenneB | Apr 2, 2013 |
 [Y]ou need be neither runner nor writer to find resonance in this slender but lucid meditation.  So what does he think about while running? The disappointing answer is not much apart from the rhythms of feet on tarmac and blood pumping round the body.  It is not just these perversely impressive physical feats that sharpen what might otherwise be a dull treatise on a healthful habit; Mr. Murakami's work has always combined the ordinary and the extraordinary, and this memoir is no exception.  To characterize it as briefly as possible: easy on ear and mind alike, it’s the type of prose I would call sort of pretty poor. Running is “sort of a vague theme” (i.e., not just vague but vaguely vague), and the book is “a kind of memoir.” Murakami sort of likes this kind of thing, not just as an indistinct modifier but as a form of category-definition. He’s the “type of person,” “kind of person” — I lost track of the number of times this came up — who likes “sort of laid-back” music and is “sort of a brazen person” who sometimes has “a sort of arrogant attitude.” When I closed the book, I found myself fantasising not about athletic feats, but that more readily available satisfaction that Murakami evokes so tellingly: the stinging joy of a very, very cold beer.
References to this work on external resources.
|
 Google Books — Loading...
Popular coversRatingAverage: (3.61)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
5
Wikipedia in English (2)
1
When I got in the bookshop, I couldn't actually decide what to get. I dithered over some Arthuriana, some historical fiction, Kazuo Ishiguro, something with dragons... And then I saw the little row of Haruki Murakami's books. They always make me a little curious; I've read one of his books before, read the first chapters of a couple of others, but I've never got into it. But the memory of the existence of this particular book was already hovering in my mind, since my running partner and I had literally stopped running only fifty metres up the road.
I'm not a distance runner, yet, but Haruki Murakami made me want to be. I'm twenty-two years old, and he's got me completely, utterly beaten in terms of fitness. I want to someday say, oh, I only did thirty minutes running today, and have that genuinely be not that much of an achievement (at present, my housemate and I are steadily pushing through Couch to 5k in preparation for a 5k run for charity, which seems a big enough goal to us). I want to start cycling and swimming and see if a triathlon will work out for me. And I guess Haruki Murakami kind of gave me the confidence that I can do it, if I'm only determined enough, if I just want it enough and work hard enough.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running isn't just about running. It's about writing, and working, and growing older, reaching your limits. It's, like he says in the foreword and afterword, a memoir. I don't know how much you'll get out of it if you're not interested in running and/or writing, but I found it interesting.
Unfortunately, it still hasn't pushed me out of my strange inertia when it comes to reading Murakami's other work... (