Lan D. Ho!
"At least I know now how not to impress you." //
I Came to Game
October 27, 2011
More art imitating life:Murakami's fiction has a special way of leaking into reality. During my five days in Japan, I found that I was less comfortable in actual Tokyo than I was in Murakami's Tokyo—the real city filtered through the imaginative lens of his books. I spent as much time in that world as possible. I went to a baseball game at Jingu Stadium—the site of Murakami's epiphany—and stood high up in the frenzy of the bleachers, paying special attention every time someone hit a double. (The closest I got to my own epiphany was when I shot an edamame bean straight down my throat and almost choked.) I went for a long run on Murakami's favorite Tokyo running route, the Jingu-Gaien, while listening to his favorite running music, the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" and Eric Clapton's 2001 album "Reptile." My hotel was near Shinjuku Station, the transportation hub around which "1Q84" pivots, and I drank coffee and ate curry at its characters' favorite meeting place, the Nakamuraya cafe. I went to a Denny's at midnight—the scene of the opening of Murakami's novel "After Dark"—and eavesdropped on Tokyoites over French toast and bubble tea. I became hyperaware, as I wandered around, of the things Murakami novels are hyperaware of: incidental music, ascents and descents, the shapes of people's ears.
In doing all of this I was joining a long line of Murakami pilgrims. People have published cookbooks based on the meals described in his novels and assembled endless online playlists of the music his characters listen to. Murakami told me, with obvious delight, that a company in Korea has organized "Kafka on the Shore" tour groups in Western Japan, and that his Polish translator is putting together a "1Q84"–themed travel guide to Tokyo. (Sam Anderson, "The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami," New York Times, October 21, 2011)
