I have never read a Murakami before. I have heard people rave about him, adore him, adorn their shelves with his books and wondered why.
There are three reasons why a person could pick this book up.
1. Love running and would like to read a book on it - The ones who know what you are talking about when you talk about Ra Ra muri.
2. Love reading Murakami
3. Love reading Raymond Chandler and ergo
The reason why I have never picked up a Murakami earlier is because every single person I have met who raves about Murakami has been one of those intellectual types who make me want to avoid one.
The reasons why I did pick it up was because in the last couple of years I have learnt to love to run, my secret desires to read a Murakami, the lovely title of the book and that it numbered not more than 170 pages.
Maybe a non fiction is not the best introduction to a Murakami,but, for me it was for all the reasons mentioned.
I love this book. It spoke to me at so many levels. Murakami is the person I am in small ways. Murakami is the person whom I have always longed to be - The runner, the writer, the confident, the dreamer.
Some of the gems or things that resounded with me that I found in the book on being
1. I am the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two everyday running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring.
2. Mick Jagger once boasted that "I'd rather be dead than still singing satisfaction as 45" But now he's 60 and still singing satisfaction. Can I laugh at Mick Jagger? No way. I just happen not to be a young rock singer. Nobody remembers what stupid things I might have said back then, so they're not able to wrote them back at me. That's the only difference
Some of the gems or things that resounded with me that I found in the book on running
1. "Does a runner at your level ever feel like you'd rather not run today, like you don't want to run and would rather just sleep in?"
He stared at me and in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, "Of course. All the time!"
2. On injuring a knee: Still I felt a bit uneasy. Had the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear?
3. Someday, if I have a gravestone and I'm and pick what's carved on it, I'd like it to say this: Writer (and runner)
At least he never walked.
