There are sections of the book, Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami that I enjoyed. I did think he was self-deprecating, and unwilling to take a little credit for his successes as a writer though. While being published and being received favorably are a function of luck to a certain degree, there is the fact that a consistent writer has to keep themselves out there. They need to remain vulnerable and suffer acutely all the emotions that their characters do with a passion. It is a tough vocation, and not always a lucrative one.
“Writing novels is, to my way of thinking, basically a very uncool enterprise.”
Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation
He goes on to tell the story he read as a child in which two men go to see and understand why Mt Fujiyama is revered thus, and what was special about it. The smarter of the two men apparently sized the mountain from various vantage points and decided he knew enough about it, and went on his way. Efficient, Fujiyama seen, and admired.
The other one, apparently, went on to climb the mountain by foot, agonizingly conquering the mountain. “Finally, he has understood it or perhaps grasped its essence at a less conscious level.”
Murakami equates the latter with a writer. In other words, the harder route. He calls the endeavor of novel writing as sometimes being thankless, other times laborious, and at times a strenuous job.
I think I agree with all of the above. Every good novel I read has me in awe. For it takes a different kind of empathy and a wholly different kind of perseverance to imagine a world, make sense of the characters, imagine what each of them will do, how they would react to a situation and so much more.
So, when I finished reading When Women Were Dragons – By Kelly Barnhill, I took the story with me everywhere. I read the author’s note scribbled at the end. The vote of thanks piece. The credits when people leave the cinema theatre. I read this because of the enormous respect I have for a piece of creative work – fiction or non-fiction – and the universe that helped create the book that I had just enjoyed.
I am sharing a bit of Kelly Barnhill’s note here:
“And, thank you to my wonderful family – … -who have to live with a person often hijacked by her own imagination, and wounded by the world. The work of storytelling requires a person to remain in a state of brutal vulnerability and punishing empathy. We feel everything. It tears us apart. We could not do this work without people in our lives to love us unceasingly, and to put us back together. “
Kelly Barnhill (Acknowledgement) When Women Were Dragons
The depths and capacity for creative work continues to astound me – blessed is an intellect that can imagine, and blessed indeed is a culture that promotes growth through imagination.
Nourish-n-Cherish 