醒めながら夢見る、など

Heidi Benson “What Haruki Murakami talks about” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/24/RVL713GP8T.DTL

村上春樹はカリフォルニア大学バークレー校「日本研究センター」50周年記念シンポジウムに出席した。San Francisco Chronicleがその合間に行ったインタヴュー。そこから少し抜き書き；

Q: Readers are very passionate about your work. Why do you think fiction matters to people so much?

A: That's a big question. I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it's not imagination. It's just a way of watching. Sometimes it's not easy. You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o'clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that's enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue. You cannot do that while you are asleep. When the dream stops, it stops forever. You cannot continue to dream that same dream. But if you are a writer, you can do that. That is a great thing, to keep on dreaming while you are awake.

また、歴史と記憶と責任について；

Q: It has been said that history has loomed larger in your recent writing. Do you agree?

A: Yes. I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory and I'm using my collective memory. I like to read books on history and I'm interested in the Second World War. I was born in 1949, after the war ended, but I feel like I'm kind of responsible for that war. I don't know why. Many people say, "I was born after the war, so I'm not responsible at all - I don't know about the comfort women or the Nanking massacre."

I want to do something as a fiction writer about those things, those atrocities. We have to be responsible for our memories. My stories are not written in realistic style. But you have to see reality. That is your duty, that is your obligation.

911を巡って；

Q: Do you follow American politics closely?

A: Yes. The American political situation is very connected to other countries. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like now if 9/11 had not happened.

Q: What do you imagine a world without 9/11 would be like?

A: Maybe Al Gore would have been president. There would be no Iraqi war, no Afghanistan invasion. We are living in the future now, in a kind of science fiction - 9/11 itself was kind of unreal to me, those images of planes diving into the buildings. I felt like I stepped into the wrong world.

I have a feeling that if people like my stories, they are feeling the same way. Many people are feeling trapped. That is what I'm doing in my writing every day. I'm stepping into a dark room. There is a secret door in my mind. I step inside and I don't know what I'm going to find. Darkness. I describe what I see and I return to this world. My job is to just see and to write it down. I'm just an observer of what's happening.

村上春樹については、http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20060313/1142223339 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20060410/1144639519 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20060521/1148175252 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20060724/1153751219 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20070321/1174443344 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20070710/1184081348 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20070817/1187321781 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20071012/1192169273 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20071017/1192639890 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20071024/1193237687 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20080414/1208109160とかも参照のこと。

ところで、最近或るメロディがけっこう頻繁に脳内で再生されるのだが、つじあやのの「風になる」だった。

恋恋風歌 (CCCD)