Unexpected Moments of Clarity

The making of Murakami, life-changing epiphanies, and writing in English

Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash, rendered black & white by me

Murakami started writing after he had an epiphany at a baseball game, one bright April afternoon in 1978. In the first inning, Dave Hilton of the Yakult Swallows made a perfect hit. “The satisfying crack when the bat met the ball resounded throughout Jingu Stadium. Scattered applause rose around me. In that instant, for no reason and based on no ground whatsoever, it suddenly struck me: I think I can write a novel.”, he says in the introduction to Pinball, 1973. 

“I can still recall the exact sensation. It felt as if something had come fluttering down from the sky, and I had caught it cleanly in my hands. I had no idea why it had chanced to fall into my grasp. I didn't know then, and I don't know now. Whatever the reason, it had taken place. It was like a revelation. Or maybe ‘epiphany’ is a better word. All I can say is that my life was drastically and permanently altered in that instant.”

I love epiphanies, sudden realizations, lightbulb moments, bolts of lightning. I haven’t had any myself, not of life-changing significance at least. But when I read about others’ experiences I feel a shiver of positivity down my spine. And I think that anything is possible and that the universe takes the time it takes and works best when unsolicited. These moments seem to bear two fundamental traits that keep coming up over and over again when they’re narrated: 1) they strike unexpectedly, and 2) they are unrelated to anything occurring in the moment, but directly dependent on it, as if the act of doing a particular something served as conduit for a hidden switch to toggle in the right direction. Like the proverbial secret passage that reveals itself only if you touch the right book on the bookshelf. But of course you touch that book accidentally, when you’re not meant to.

Who knows, maybe tomorrow, when I’m at the grocery store and absent-mindedly pick up an eggplant, I’ll have one of these epiphanies. Something will flutter down from the sky, land right in my hands or on my shoulders or on my lap, and drastically and permanently alter my life. And it will have nothing to do with me picking up that eggplant. What if the power of unrelatedness, turning causation on its head or just plainly pulverizing it, were really a thing? What if this were the way the universe actually works? What if we have understood nothing so far, and ‘rational’ cause-effect relationships were as random as getting the epiphany about writing a novel the moment a player makes a perfect hit at a baseball game? What if.  

After that epiphany, Murakami started to write, but had no clue about how to write a novel. He didn’t particularly follow contemporary Japanese literature and wasn’t sure of the correct approach to writing fiction in his own language. This is something anyone who decides to write always confronts: What style am I supposed to write in? What’s universally considered ‘good writing’ and how should I embrace and conform to its standards? What’s the correct approach and -- most critically (and preposterously, to me) -- what do people enjoy reading? “For several months, I operated on pure guesswork, adopting what seemed to be a likely style and running with it”, he says.

He embarked on the first draft of a novel, but didn’t like the end result. “While my book seemed to fulfill the formal requirements of a novel, it was somewhat boring and, as a whole, left me cold. If that’s the way the author feels, [...] a reader’s reaction will probably be even more negative.” Most aspiring novelists would end, or at least interrupt, the journey there, thinking they just don’t have what it takes. But an epiphany is an epiphany, and he persevered. “Give up trying to write something sophisticated, I told myself. Forget all these prescriptive ideas about ‘the novel’ and ‘literature’ and set down your feelings and thoughts as they come to you, freely, in a way that you like.”

So, as an experiment (“since I was willing to try anything, why not give that a shot?”), he decided to re-write the opening of the novel in English. Due to a limited vocabulary and a basic command of the English syntax, he could only write in simple, short sentences. “The result was a rough, uncultivated kind of prose. As I struggled to express myself in that fashion, however, step by step, a distinctive rhythm began to take shape.” He discovered that he could express even complex thoughts and feelings with a limited set of words and grammatical structures. “I learned that there was no need for a lot of difficult words -- I didn’t have to try to impress people with beautiful turns of phrase.”  

Empowered by this realization, he then tried to translate what he had written in English into Japanese, and “in the process, a new style of Japanese emerged. The style that would be mine. A style I myself had discovered. Now I get it, I thought. This is how I should be doing it. It was a moment of true clarity.” An epiphany within the epiphany.     

“What I was seeking by writing first in English and then ‘translating’ into Japanese was no less than the creation of an unadorned ‘neutral’ style that would allow me freer movement. My interest was not in creating a watered-down form of Japanese. I wanted to deploy a type of Japanese as far removed as possible from so-called literary language in order to write in my own natural voice.”

A neutral style that would allow him freer movement, in order to write in his own natural voice. Right there, I think you’ve got the essence of what writing should be: free, liberating, natural. No matter how literary poor or nonconforming or far from “what readers enjoy reading” it may seem. 

Murakami’s writing origins, the making of his own style, resonate deeply with me. I, too, although no Murakami, have decided to start writing in English as a non-native speaker. And I, too, have a limited English vocabulary and command of syntax. More importantly (and relevant), without knowing Murakami’s story, I chose to write in English for his exact same reason: because I thought that I would be forced to write simple and clear, using short sentences made out of a limited set of words and constructs, and use these unsophisticated tools to make my inner chaotic and complicated thinking simple. Writing in a language that forces me to streamline and simplify, to be essential and compact, has been of immense help to my thinking process. It has allowed me to continuously refine my thought decoding ability; to unlock, untangle, and liberate ideas. It is a satisfying process, one that makes me want to return to the page time and again.  

I haven’t gone as far as to translate my English writing into Italian, as he did into Japanese. The idea intrigues me and I might give it a try, one day. After all, this last bit was the real revelation for him, what made him discover his writing self via the construction of a unique, distinguishable style. But he had that epiphany, and I had none. So I guess I’ll stick with English for now. 

And maybe I’ll start going to baseball games.  

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