WHEN LITERATURE BECOMES LIGHT
NOW SHOWING IN BANGKOK, THE KIND OF FILM ADAPTATION HARUKI MURAKAMI DESERVES
Haruki Murakami’s books exert a strange pull that’s earned him a devoted following around the world — and Thailand is no exception. One foot planted in the reality of the modern world, the other trudging through a surreal dreamland as the ground beneath his characters’ feet keeps shifting, Murakami entrances and confuses, lulls and hallucinates. His novels and short stories also occupy that exclusive territory in the literary world: he’s a best-selling author who’s also every bookmaker’s favourite to win the Nobel Prize. He’s also one of a few post-war Japanese writers whose style and substance transcend cultural and national boundaries.
One of his short stories, Barn Burning, has been adapted into a film by Korean director Lee Chang-dong. Titled Burning, the film debuted to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival in May and is now showing in select Thai cinemas. A drama about social identity and class revolving around two men and one woman, Burning bears a favourite hallmark of Murakami: the tangled web of characters who all seem to drift inside a void, longing for something that seems out of their grasps.
The release of the film has boosted interest in the writer, who had already been a name on every serious reader’s lips.
“Every young Thai reader who’s interested in literature these days knows they have to read Murakami,” says Duangruethai Asanachatang, owner of the bookstore Candide and editor of a recent Thai translation of a Murakami short-story collection that includes Barn Burning.
“I believe that a number of Thai writers of the present generation are also influenced by Murakami. They find the enigmatic, semi-conscious atmosphere of his books attractive and relevant to the current mood.”
Now 69, Murakami wrote his first book in 1979, called Hear The Wind Sing. He’s gained an international clout of admirers since the English translation of his novels started to appear in the 1990s — A Wild Sheep Chase, Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Sputnik Sweetheart and more — and he has been translated into over 40 languages since. To date, he has written 13 novels, a few-dozen short
stories, and several books of essays. His latest novel, Killing Commendatore, came out in Japanese last year.
His first book, Hear The Wind Sing, was translated into Thai in 2002 by Noppadol Wejsawasdi, a prolific translator who would go on to translate many other works by the writer. It wasn’t a big hit, but the name Murakami made an entrance into the consciousness of Thai readers, and soon, with subsequent translation, the writer scored a solid fan base, first among literary devotees, and later the hype spread to younger people. All of Murakami’s novels and nonfiction books, and virtually all of his short stories, have been translated into Thai — a rare feat for a Japanese writer. The Thai translation of his latest, Killing Commenda
tore, is set for release in a few months. “Murakami’s stories are not about plots; they’re attractive because of their literary flavour, the way he describes his characters or situations,” said Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, a writer and the Thai translator of Barn Burning.
“He’s popular around the world, I think, because he talks about things that are universal — about the middle class in the late-capitalism period, about people who feel empty, self-absorbed, a little lost, people who seem to have everything but who still feel lacking.”
Wiwat is among the 18 Thai writers who each translated a Murakami story for a compilation called Sen Saeng Tee Soon Hai
( Firefly, Barn Burning And Other Stories).
“In Barn Burning, it’s clear that Murakami talks about well-to-do characters who break away from society and try to find their identity through objects — cars, food, etc. In a way, Murakami’s stories present the self-image that his readers wish to become — and we, as readers, feel that we could become those characters without having to try too hard. That’s why his stories pull us in.”
It’s always hard to summarise Murakami stories into a neat capsule. The writer (who will not win the Nobel Prize in Literature this year, since the committee has postponed its next announcement to 2019) has amassed literary and popular fame through his concoction of the romantic and the bizarre, and his themes concern alienation, existential crises, disconcerted romance and ungraspable dreams. A Wild
Sheep Chase is a quest to find a sheep with a star mark; 1Q84 has a man and a woman looking for each other in a surreal setting;
Norwegian Wood, one of his most popular among Thai readers, is a story about young love and sexuality; After The Quake is a set of short stories inspired by the tragic earthquake in Kobe.
The first Thai translation of Murakami’s novels was based on the English translation. But lately, local publishers prefer to use the original Japanese text as a source, paying closer attention to the literary nuances that make up Murakami’s appeal.
Thitirat Thipsamritkul, a Japan-educated law lecturer who also edits a couple of Japanese-Thai translation of Murakami’s books, said that some of the early Thai translation of Murakami’s works bear “huge differences” in prose construction and literary flavour from the Japanese text — largely because it was based on the English translation of the original, a process that causes degrees of dilution as a novel goes through several cultural and linguistic barriers.
“Murakami writes in simple sentences and he uses a simple vocabulary,” said Thitirat, who edited the Thai version of the author’s Men Without Women and After
The Quake based on the Japanese text. “His remarkable quality, however, is the way he uses that simple vocabulary to descriptive brilliance. He creates a surreal atmosphere in his books through basic words — in the way he paints his characters or scenes.
“Sometimes Thai translators add colours into his prose, especially if they translate it from English, and don’t get the sense of style of the original.”
Thitirat believes that Murakami’s worldwide fame — even fandom, for the author can command excitement and anticipation resembling that which usually attends rock stars — is derived from his unique position: among post-World War II Japanese writers, Murakami is one of the few who writes about identity, loneliness, existential crisis, or themes that have international resonance.
“Before World War II, the West — and the world — studied Japanese literature for its exotic quality,” she said. “Murakami turned that around. His stories are not about exotic Japan at all.”
This international popularity means a handful of Murakami’s stories have been made into movies. Some of them did great service to the original text: Tony Tak
itani, directed by Jun Ichikawa, in which a woman is so obsessed with shopping that her life is in danger because of it; or the at-issue Burning, a tale of class tension and existential emptiness, transposed into a Korean setting.
“To put it bluntly, Murakami’s stories are cool,” said Wiwat, the translator. “But it’s also more than that. He’s like a friend who understands us — and also a mentor who guides us into another world.”
Burning is currently showing at SF cinemas.