Haruki Murakami has reclaimed *story* from a world of disenchanted fiction… he has something wonderful that, say, Jonathan Safran Foer just does not. My sister sent me this short story, translated by Jay Ruben. It can be found in print in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: Twenty-four Stories, published last year.
from the story:
‘I’m not just saying this to make you feel good,’ Kirie said, ‘but you’ve got something special - that special something it takes to become an outstanding writer. Your stories have a quiet mood, but several of them are quite lively, and the style is beautiful, but mainly your writing is so balanced. For me, that is always the most important thing - in music, in fiction, in painting. Whenever I encounter a work or a performance that lacks that balance - which is to say, whenever I encounter a poor, unfinished work - it makes me sick. Like motion sickness. That’s probably why I don’t go to concerts and hardly read any fiction.’
‘Because you don’t want to encounter unbalanced things?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And in order to avoid that risk, you don’t read novels and you don’t go to concerts?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Sounds a little over the top to me.’
‘I’m a Libra. I just can’t stand it when things are out of balance. No, it’s not so much that I can’t stand it as -‘
