MURAKAMI - 1Q84

The sense of smell reveals a great deal - sometimes it reveals everything.

The scene was soundless, the air a dense liquid. All he could hear was the soft beating of his own heart. Look at this, they say. Look at this and nothing else, they say. You are here. You can’t go anywhere else, they say. The message is played over and over.

MURAKAMI - 1Q84

Her next work is not going to make it, and neither will the one after that or the one after that. First of all, look at this style. No amount of work is going to make it any better. It’s never going to happen.

MURAKAMI - 1Q84

And the reason it’s never going to happen is that the writer herself doesn’t give a damn about style: she shows absolutely no intention of wanting to write well, of wanting to improve her writing.

MURAKAMI - 1Q84

Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it.

There also has to be that ‘special something,’ an indefinable quality, something I can’t quite put my finger on.

That’s the part of fiction I value more highly than anything else. Stuff I understand perfectly doesn’t interest me. Obviously. It’s very simple.” 

Tengo fell silent for a while. Then he said, “Does Fuka-Eri’s writing have something you don’t understand perfectly?”

“Yes, it does, of course. She has something important. I don’t know what it is exactly, but she has it, that much is clear. It’s obvious to you, and it’s obvious to me. Anybody can see it, like the smoke from a bonfire on a windless afternoon…”

MURAKAMI - 1Q84

Tengo picked up his coffee cup and stared at the puddle inside.

Then he put the cup down again. Komatsu still had not spoken. Tengo asked, “Is this where I find out what you mean by ‘something else’?” Komatsu narrowed his eyes like a teacher gazing upon his prize pupil. He nodded slowly and said, “It is.”