Secrets and advice: Haruki Murakami responds to readers’ questions online

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/16/haruki-murakami-agony-uncle-fans-online-questions

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Haruki Murakami concedes he could improve on one of his most famous novels, says he has learned to live with the barbs of his critics, and admits feeling slightly awkward about sharing a birthday with Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man.

The novelist’s long-awaited reincarnation as an agony uncle began on Friday when he started responding to fans’ online questions about, among other topics, bringing up children and hate speech, although he predictably steered away from offering any insights into his private life.

The 66-year-old’s advice column debut was notable, too, for the absence of any discussion about his well-known passion for jazz, cats, running and the Yakult Swallows baseball team.

A day after its launch, Murakami-san no tokoro – or Mr Murakami’s Place – is playing it safe, in keeping with his insistence on indulging in light-hearted conversation with his readers.

Launched by the publishing company Shinchosha, the website shows cartoon renderings of Murakami, dressed in a blue sweater and sitting with animals or typing on a laptop. The site will accept questions until 31 January, with Murakami’s responses to a small selection appearing over the following two months.

In 10 brief contributions on the site on Friday, Murakami confirmed his reputation for reticence, but displayed moments of sardonic wit that will delight devotees in Japan and dozens of other countries where his books have sold millions in translation.

One of the early questions came from a 51-year-old doctor who wondered if he was entitled to a “special invitation” to spend a day by the author’s side.

He may have been disappointed with Murakami’s polite, but firm, reply: “There are tiny secrets about my life, so it would be troubling for you to take a peek into it,” he said. “Instead, try taking a look into other people’s lives.”

Murakami, who established himself as a leading author with his 1987 novel Norwegian Wood, is coaxed into a rare loquacious response to a question about the “global problem” of hate speech.

“As a novelist, I am occasionally the target of hate speech,” he wrote. “There are, after all, some awful people out there … We have to do something about this trend.”

It was not fair, he added, to target people because of their race or other things over which they had no control.

He assured visitors to the site that he would read and reply to the questions personally. “It’s not like I just sign what I made an assistant or editor write,” he said in a greeting. “Unfortunately I only have one body … I can’t answer everyone.”

The site is in Japanese, but Shinchosha said it would accept questions in English and other languages: an English translation of the application form can be found at the Taiwan, Japan, Spain and I blog.

The writer rarely appears in public, preferring to restrict any direct contact with his readers to occasional message exchanges. He has, though, spoken out on contentious topics, such as nuclear power, peace and Japan’s resurgent nationalism.

Readers are invited to post questions or “little somethings” they want to share with the author. No subject is taboo, although messages should contain a maximum of 1,200 characters.

One reader, a 43-year-old woman, managed to elicit a guarded response about Murakami’s writing plans.

Asked if he had considered a third work of non-fiction to add to those about running and the 1995 sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, he said: “I’ve thought about it, but there’s been no real movement on this. The preparation is really hard work.”

Another person asked him how he would improve one of his best-known novels, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, if he had the chance to write the 30-year-old work again.

“When you think about a girl you dated a long time ago, don’t you find yourself thinking, ‘Ah, if only things had gone better,’” Murakami replied. “I often do. It’s the same thing … if only things had gone better. That said, then was then, and I think I did my best.”

Murakami only embraces his agony uncle alter ego once, when a 32-year-old mother explains that she wants to bring up her 11-year-old son to be like him. “He plays computer games every day and never reads books,” she complained.

Murakami replied: “Bring him up like me? I wonder what you mean by that. It’s quite tough being me … but I somehow managed it, because I am me.

“If you mean you want to bring him up to like books, then I think you have to leave that up to him,” he said, adding that he no longer reads as much as he would like since his eyesight seems to have deteriorated slightly.

In response to a 49-year-old woman born on the same date as the novelist – 12 January – he points out that they share a birthday with the author Jack London, but also with the Nazi second-in-command Hermann Göring.

“That’s a bit of a problem,” he said. “But it turns out that after the allies arrested the most senior Nazis after the war, Göring performed best at a kind of intelligence test. Maybe that was down to his date of birth.”

Murakami went on to say he celebrated his birthday with a visit to a restaurant, where he ate a “seafood tower”: a stack of delicacies comprising shrimp, lobster, oysters, mussels, sashimi and octopus. “It was incredible,” he said.