What I Talk About When I Talk About Running [Hardcover]

Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: July 29, 2008

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Murakami's latest is a nonfiction work mostly concerned with his thoughts on the long-distance running he has engaged in for much of his adult life. Through a mix of adapted diary entries, old essays, reminiscences and life advice, Murakami crafts a charming little volume notable for its good-natured and intimate tone. While the subject matter is radically different from the fabulous and surreal fiction that Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) most often produces, longtime readers will recognize the source of the isolated, journeying protagonists of the author's novels in the formative running experiences recounted. Murakami's insistence on focusing almost exclusively on running can grow somewhat tedious over the course of the book, but discrete, absorbing episodes, such as a will-breaking 62-mile ultramarathon and a solo re-creation of the historic first marathon in Greece serve as dynamic and well-rendered highlights. Murakami offers precious little insight into much of his life as a writer, but what he does provide should be of value to those trying to understand the author's long and fruitful career. An early section recounting Murakami's transition from nightclub owner to novelist offers a particularly vivid picture of an artist soaring into flight for the first time. (Aug.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Haruki Murakami has established himself as one of the most interesting and innovative novelists of the last two decades, combining pop culture with a magic-realistic sensibility that has garnered the author a faithful following. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running couldn’t differ more from the rest of Murakami’s work. This slender volume catalogs the author’s love for that most solitary of athletic endeavors, though even Murakami’s prodigious talent as a writer can’t quite bridge the gap between the cultish world of hard-core running and a broader audience. This hit-and-miss effort—with something, literally, lost in the translation and some lazy writing—will be welcomed by a small (probably athletic) audience, but may not reach readers who aren’t already on board with Murakami or running.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 179 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (July 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307269191
• ISBN-13: 978-0307269195
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (153 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into forty-two languages. The most recent of his many honours is the Franz Kafka Prize.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#62 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#77 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#62 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#77 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 76 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Written for Murakami enthusiasts... August 18, 2008

By D. Kanigan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Murakami, 58, authored 15+ novels, many highly acclaimed. He has received many literary awards and honorary doctorates. I have read and thoroughly enjoyed most of his best selling works (including my favorites: Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood and A Wild Sheep Chase). In reading this book, I had come to learn that Murakami had completed 25+ marathons, 1 ultra marathon (60+miles) and 5+ triathlons - this is a truly extraordinary accomplishment.

Murakami is humble, candid and straightforward exposing his mistakes, flaws and shortcomings - - one passage: "But this wretched story of feeling I had as I stood in front of the mirror at sixteen, listing all of my physical shortcomings, is still sort of touchstone for me even now. The sad spreadsheet of my life reveals how my debts outweigh my assets."

You get into his mind and his incredible determination to complete marathons and triathlons - feeling the sun baking his skin and the water filling his lungs - yet he keeps his feet and arms moving despite his mind and body telling him to stop.

You also learn about the impact that advancing middle age has on his performance times and that they are no longer improving despite a rigorous training regimen - "even if, seen from the outside, or from some higher vantage point, this sort of life looks pointless or futile, or even extremely efficient, it doesn't bother me. Maybe it's a pointless act like as I've said before, pouring water into an old pan that has a hole in the bottom, but at least the effort you put into it remains. Whether it's good for anything or not, cool or totally uncool, in the final analysis what's most important is what you can't see but can feel in your heart...."

The book is described by Murakami as a collection of essays he wrote between 2005 and 2007 and then pieced together and edited for this book. I felt that the book often read like a loosely edited diary - - in contrast to his visually beautiful, smooth, multi-layered, dreamy fictional works. While I found flashes of the profile of his prior novels in a few passages, I found this book to be choppy and informal in comparison.

Early on in the book, Murakami discusses his strategy in running a Jazz bar in Tokyo - he wasn't out "to please everybody" - "it didn't matter if 9 out of 10" didn't like his bar but that "if one in ten was a repeat customer" his business would survive. My sense is that this book will narrowly appeal to the "one in ten repeaters" of devoted Murakami's fans (me being one of them) - - readers who wish to learn more about his life, his experiences, what makes him "tick" - and more specifically, the role that running, biking, swimming and training for marathons and triathlons had on his writing and his life. Read more ›

81 of 98 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Murakami Talks About Life August 4, 2008

By Howard Goldowsky

Format:Hardcover

I have not read any of Murakami's novels (this may change soon), but in his short stories he often employs subtle nostalgia for his characters' pasts. Often this nostalgia blurs the line with philosophy, and after reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, it became apparent why Murakami enjoys crafting his fiction this way: his style of writing mirrors his perspective on life. After traveling the world, training for and participating in marathons and triathlons, Murakami wants to share his runner's experiences and how they have molded him and his perspective on life. He presents us with a thought-provoking and entertaining narrative (some of it culled from journal entries and old magazines articles he wrote years ago, but most of it original stuff).

The book is 1/3 travelogue, 1/3 self-help, and 1/3 runners guide. We read about the running environments and typical weather patterns where Murakami has trained: New York, Boston, Japan, Greece. We read about the mental discipline and courage it takes to be a long-distance runner. But, most of all, subtly emerging on each page, we read about Murakami the philosopher. His favorite topic is the merciless and stubborn passage of time and its effects on the body and mind. He writes candidly about his thoughts on training as he grows older (Murakami was in his late 50s when he wrote much of the book). He writes about what he thinks about as he runs (ususally nothing); he writes about discipline. To paraphrase one of Murakami's favorite quotes (I forget the source): "...pain is inevitable; suffering is optional."

Murakami tells us that he was neither a natural novelist nor runner. He has had to work hard at both, but both are things which require a steady effort, skills with which Murakami prides himself.... As we read along, we learn about Murakami's start as a novelist, his love for baseball, his strong character, and how he applied his strong character to defy his friends and relatives and open a restaurant, become a writer, and eventually, a marathon runner (even once running a 62-mile ultra-marathon). He had opened a restaurant before he became a writer, but one day, after the success of his first novel, he decided to close the restaurant and become a professional writer. It was at this time when he also decided to start running and quit smoking (in that order).

Although the chronology of the book might be a little out of order (the book is not structured chronologically), and this might throw a few more traditional readers, this wasn't a problem. The translation seemed genuine (although I can't read Japanese!), as the translator kept all of the little Murakami-isms one would expect: little phrases such as "...as I mentioned before," or little tangents into the second person. The style remains informal throughout.

Despite its ostensible subject matter (running), this is a book for everyone, because its real subject matter is not about running -- it's about how Murakami gathers meaning from life. Using a master's touch, he shows us how this meaning derives from his simple act of running each day. I, for one, became inspired. Read more ›

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars What I Don't Want to Read When I Want To Read About Running and Writing April 13, 2010

By G. D. Brennan III VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I hate to say it, but this is probably the worst thing I've read by Murakami.

On paper--or rather, on the back of the paperback--it sounded like a sure thing; I'm a writer, and I've got a few marathons under my belt, and I was spellbound by the three other books I've read of his. So I thought I'd hit the trifecta when I pulled this off the shelf (at Border's--sorry, Amazon!) and saw that he'd written about writing and running.

And by and large, I felt a rush of excitement in the early chapters, a sensation not unlike the fresh lively feeling one gets at the start of a marathon, when the exhilaration far outweighs the effort that's been expended. It's fascinating, for instance, to read that he'd been the owner of a small jazz nightclub and hadn't had any particular ambitions to be a writer until he was in his 30s. I couldn't identify with that, but I could relate to his persistent attitude about writing. There's a romanticized notion of writers living the bad life, drinking and smoking and doing their best to churn out a great manuscript or two before their hard living catches up with them. (I've lived that life, but in my experience it doesn't necessarily make one a better writer, unless one's writing about what it feels like to drink and smoke, and that eventually makes for boring reading. This "But-Hemingway-did-it!" attitude often eventually becomes just an extra excuse to drink and smoke. Anyway, I digress.) It turns out that the lessons of physical fitness--persistence, mental toughness, goal-setting--can be far more useful and applicable to writing, a lesson Murakami and I have both apparently learned.

But those insights are, by and large, done by the midway point, and what remains is a long and boring slog.... I've heard that a writer should never confuse how they feel about a story with how good the story actually is, and Murakami would have done well to heed this advice; his training efforts and race times were obviously near and dear and dear to his heart, but they make for rather unexciting reading. Also, his observations and analyses often come off as flat and uninspired; as an author, he's great at conjuring up memorably fantastic scenarios that still seem real, characters that feel full, and plots that work like a Swiss watch, but without the ability to make things up and take them in unexpected directions, he's reduced to stating banalities like "Nobody's going to win all the time. On the highway of life you can't always be in the fast lane."

To be fair, I'm possibly a little jealous. Murakami's enough of an established author that he could probably print out, say, every email he's sent in the last ten years, staple them together and call them a book, and sell a kajillion copies, whereas some of us are still toiling away in obscurity, unable to sell manuscripts over which we've slaved for years. But it seems even Murakami has the sense that this is a substandard work. After describing a disappointing performance at the Boston Marathon, he says, "This may be a sort of conclusion. An understated, rainy-day sneakers sort of conclusion. An anticlimax, if you will. Turn it into a screenplay, and the Hollywood producer would just glance at the last page and toss it back." Elsewhere, he mentions reworking the manuscript many times; while some amount of revision is obviously necessary, too much ends up leaving the writer with no sense of perspective on whether or not the work's any good. Like a jogger slogging towards the finish line, one ends up thinking about just getting the damn thing done with and resting for a while.

In lieu of this, I'd suggest getting Ann Lamott's "Bird by Bird," which doesn't have any fitness tips but is perhaps the best book I've ever read about writing. But if your desire to read is as automatic as Murakami's desire to run, you may end up picking this up anyway. And if you're anything like me you may end up turning the final page wearily, muttering the tired marathoner's frequent post-race lament: "Never again." Read more ›