Ha ha. From a New Yorker interview with the great writer Haruki Murakami, published a couple week ago, noticed today as I'm putting my Murakami tags in order.
I like that cats quote, but there's a lot of interesting stuff about writing in that interview:
Readers often tell me that there’s an unreal world in my work—that the protagonist goes to that world and then comes back to the real world. But I can’t always see the borderline between the unreal world and the realistic world....
When I’m writing a novel, I wake up around four in the morning and go to my desk and start working. That happens in a realistic world. I drink real coffee. But, once I start writing, I go somewhere else. I open the door, enter that place, and see what’s happening there. I don’t know—or I don’t care—if it’s a realistic world or an unrealistic one. I go deeper and deeper, as I concentrate on writing, into a kind of underground. While I’m there, I encounter strange things. But while I’m seeing them, to my eyes, they look natural. And if there is a darkness in there, that darkness comes to me, and maybe it has some message, you know? I’m trying to grasp the message. So I look around that world and I describe what I see, and then I come back. Coming back is important. If you cannot come back, it’s scary. But I’m a professional, so I can come back....
When I’m not writing, I’m a very ordinary person. I respect the daily routine. I get up early in the morning. I go to bed around nine o’clock, unless the baseball game is still going. And I run or I swim. I’m an ordinary guy. So when I walk down the street and somebody says, “Excuse me, Mr. Murakami, very nice to meet you,” I feel strange, you know. I’m nothing special. Why is he happy to meet me? But I think that when I’m writing I am kind of special—or strange, at least.
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23 comments:
Special AND strange.
Another version of OPC's. Round here, that means "Other People's Children." To Murakami, its Other People's Cats. The best cats are OPC's, but fortunately, that is not true with kids.
I was always better at greeting stray cats than an ex-gf, a problem because she was the cat person.
They sense the patented hardin cat shoulder-rub capability.
better at = cats come instead of going away.
Thank you for posting this. What an awesome quote.
Interesting that Murikami knows that the Writer's Muse that possesses him while he is doing his writing is not him. A spirit speaks through him that is much smarter and more creative than the everyday Mr. Murikami.
Chopin cat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksnt3kBR9iM
This is great.
There's a charming set piece in Camus' The Plague. A "dapper little old man" drops torn paper from his balcony to attract stray cats. When the cats gather he attempts to spit on them. Eventually all the cats are killed and the old man is left bereft.
I too am a cat person, however, my dear husband is very allergic as are some of our children and grandchildren. There are several neighborhood cats who come to my garden. We observe each other while I garden. Possibly a neighbor dog coming to visit would be useful because it could chase the deer off my hydrangeas. I hate deer. Love the cats though.
Speaking of music and cats, The Cure drummer who played on 'Love Cats' died from cancer yesterday.
(nearly) all my neighbors have cats, and they all let them run loose.
Before i bought my house last year, the cats decided that my yard was Neutral Territory or something; and every morning (even This morning (on top of the snow)) there are Several cats hanging out in my yard. It's kinda nice, i figure it keeps down the mouse population; and they usually seem polite.
It's kind of like the way we have a dog.
My wife attracts cats. At first the neighbor cats will hang around so they can interact with our cats in the garden. Then I'll see some start to enter the house and lie in the sunspot on the sofa. Occasionally, a damaged cat will wonder in or use our block wall as a transit through the neighborhood. There was one she named Un-ear (pronounced Oon-ear, he only had one left), and another huge, shy Maine Coon cat that showed up looking he'd just been rolled by another cat. We kept a wary eye on Un-ear but welcomed the other one to hang out until he was better. He never left.
And like we had that cat Ida for a very short while.
Fortunately Thurber himself is to hand, with his wonderfully combative, aggressive, competitive women. I just reach onto my bookshelf and open Thurber's Dogs at random. I find the piece ``Canines in the Cellar,'' a tale about one of Thurber's role models, his mother. The occasion is an impending visit from Aunt Mary, whom our heroine, Mame Thurber, dislikes and does not nourish. Aunt Mary in her turn hates the Thurber family's beloved dogs.
...my mother had spend the afternoon gathering up all the dogs of the neighborhood, in advance of Aunt Mary's appearance, and putting them in the cellar. I had been allowed to go with her on her wonderful forays, and I thought that we were going to keep all the sixteen dogs we rounded up...
The big moment finally arrived. My mother, full of smiles and insincerity, told Aunt Mary that it would relieve her of a tedious chore - and heaven knows, she added, there were a thousand steps to take in that old house - if the old lady would be good enough to set down a plate of dog food in the kitchen at the head of the cellar stairs and call Judge and Sampson to their supper ... when the door opened and the could see the light of freedom and smell the odor of food, they gave tongue like a pack of hunting hounds. Aunt Mary got the door halfway open and the bodies of the largest dogs pushed it the rest of the way. There was a snarling, barking, yelping swirl of yellow and white, black and tan, gray and brindle as the dogs tumbled into the kitchen...
When the last one had departed and the upset house had been put back in order, my father said to his wife, ``Well, Mame, I hope you're satisfied.'' She was.
- Vicki Hearne, Animal Happiness
Murakami's book of conversations with Seiji Ozawa is terrific.
Our neighbor's dog, Stanley, roams in our yard. I kind of feel like we borrow Stanley.
Search
Japanese cat train
As soon as I read the headline, I knew it was Murakami.
@Fernandistein:
Thanks for that link...
I am Laslo.
Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. From Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 rules for life.
Good interview, thanks for linking it!
I was never a cat person. Until we got one.
I didn't know what I was missing.
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