走ることについて語るときに僕の語ること
2006
- marathon running
- japanese authors
- biography
- running
- biography & autobiography
- health & fitness
- new age
- nonfiction
- japanese essays
- authorship
The story
In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and--even more important--on his writing.Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo's Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back.By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.From the Hardcover edition.
What it’s like
Plain, unhurried sentences carry this one, the voice of a man talking to himself at a steady pace: the rhythm of footfalls on pavement, the small dry humour of someone who knows he is not a natural athlete. Think of early-morning light over Tokyo's tree-lined Jingu Gaien, the grey sheen of the Charles River in Boston, and the flat, sun-bleached roads of Hawaii and New York, with the dull ache of long-distance effort and the quiet of a body keeping time. The mood is reflective and steady, a little melancholy about ageing but never bleak, with the sober contentment of routine: cold mornings, sweat, a notebook, a stopwatch. Its moments of reflection suit a rainy Sunday with a cup of coffee, a long-haul flight, or a quiet evening when you want company without conversation. The pace is loose and digressive, drifting from race logs to memories of running a jazz bar, to the pleasures of vintage records, and back to the road. Its emotional register is candid, self-deprecating and philosophical, following a writer learning to accept his limits and find meaning in the repetition of effort. There is no violence, gore or sexual content, and the fear is only the ordinary anxiety of a race clock. It is for readers who love thoughtful nonfiction, anyone drawn to running or self-discipline, and admirers of a guardedly private writer who opens up a little.
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