Last night I stayed up into the wee hours reading "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World", another book by Haruki Murakami. I finished this one a lot quicker than "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" but it wasn't nearly as long or as dense. It was, none-the-less, amazing! I recently read a review on someone's blog about Murakami's work and she said that his writing broke her heart because she knew that she could never write as beautifully as him. That sums up my feelings in a nutshell.
My husband was the one who first told me about Murakami's books. He thought that I would like him because my writing style is similar to his. For whatever reason I put off reading anything by him for a long time. When I finally did get around to picking up one of his books, I was floored! Yes, my writing style is sort of like his, but his way with words is nothing short of poetic. He paints a picture that is at once both gentle and powerful. His words float on an ocean, tumbling up and down, ebbing and flowing as if guided by the moons gravitational pull. Every word is meticulously placed, like a puzzle piece, and the end result is an accomplished masterpiece.
The first of his books that I read was "Sputnik Sweetheart". It took me two days to finish and when I finally put it down I curled up in my husbands lap and cried. Why did I cry? The story was heartbreaking and bursting at the seams with unfulfilled longing. It's an unending search for the one thing that these characters couldn't have. But at the same time, the characters were woven with such a gentle pen that you wanted to wrap your arms around them and protect them from the cold and uncaring world. Murakami told the tale of these characters so beautifully that I felt he was writing about me. Of course he wasn't, and my life's story is nothing like the story of Sputnik Sweetheart, but the way that he was able to get to the very core of the character's souls left me feeling naked and vulnerable. Would you believe though, that I loved the story? Sometimes naked and vulnerable is not a bad place to be. It's not comfortable, but it could be on the doormat to change. Something big can come out of that glaring spotlight. I think that I cried at the end because I knew that I was on the cusp of something big and the immense pressure to stand up to it was terrifying.
I didn't pick up another Murakami book for 3 more months. My husband kept prodding me but I pushed it off. I didn't want to feel that way again. I hadn't stood up to the pressure. I had backed down and I didn't want to be reminded of that again. I will be the first to admit that I don't like sad movies and I don't want to read a book that makes me cry. I have had a life filled with immense pain and I don't want to revisit that pain in my leisure time. But the other side of that coin is that I'm a writer, and I won't be able to write anything meaningful unless I tap into the very pain that I run from. I know that. I've known if for a long time. Whenever I talk to Bruno about it, I end up in tears. Not because he pushes me to face it, but because just talking about having to face it scares me. I've never been more afraid of anything in my entire life.
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