5 ms·

Novelist as a Vocation

83 points by lermontov 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
elihu 4y ago
> He describes it at one point as an “unadorned natural style”, but one that was arrived at in characteristically unorthodox fashion: having failed dismally on his first attempt to write what would become Hear the Wind Sing, he began again from scratch, writing not in his native Japanese, but English. “My vocabulary was severely limited, as was my command of English syntax,” he writes, and yet when he translated his words back into Japanese, the short, simple sentences created by those self-imposed limitations possessed “a distinctive rhythm”. That's interesting. I wonder if he still does that at least some of the time for his more recent books? The English translations I've read seem to be really good; I wonder if this technique/style has made the work the translators have to do a lot easier when they translate back into English or if it doesn't actually make much difference? It seems like it would at least lead to a tendency to avoid linguistic constructions and idioms that don't have fairly obvious English translations. It would be fun to be able to read Murukami's initial English draft side by side with the English version of the published book to see how similar they are.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  > I wonder if he still does that at least some of the time for his more recent books? Don't think so however I have heard he proof-reads and adjusts the English translations after someone else translates them.
- runevault 4y ago
  I don't get the impression he expressly does this (aka writes it down then translates) but I think he does run through the mental filters to reach the same result. But I'm also still early into this book (only read the introduction and first two chapters).
- retrac 4y ago
  When I am struggling to express myself in English (my native language) I sometimes speak to myself for a bit in French. It's my second language and I'm not quite fluent in it. When I wish to express something in French, I often find myself forced to think beyond the surface words. I must discard how I would say it in English, and go for the idea underneath. I get hung up on a particular turn of phrase in English. How would I translate a phrasal verb like "hung up" into French? And does the idea even translate that way? What I mean is fixated, stuck, obsessed, misled by chasing the wrong thing. There are many ways to express it besides "hung up on". Which is a very native English speaker thing to say, but bad style, now that I look at it. Fixated would have been better. Fixé.
  - kranner 4y ago
    Idée fixe, perhaps?
georgex7 4y ago
I wrote a pretty detailed blog post about Murakami's background and how he was able to create an emotionally powerful masterpiece in Norwegian Wood: https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/reading-guide-norwegian-wood https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/reading-guide-norwegia.... Hope you guys enjoy :)
- ctchocula 4y ago
  Norwegian Wood is one of my favourites, so I look forward to reading it. Thanks for sharing!
no_butterscotch 4y ago
Was IQ84 any good? I meant to read it a while back but the wiki page scared me off - it won a "worst sex scene in literature award" and wasn't well liked by critics. I read two other stories by him (Kafka on the Shore and some short story about Yakuza). Neither really made me hunger for more though.
- elteto 4y ago
  I haven’t read anything else from Murakami but The Second Bakery Attack and absolutely loved it. It’s a short story so quick to read, and thoroughly enjoyable. Might want to give that a try! [0] https://web.mit.edu/norvin/www/somethingelse/murakami.html https://web.mit.edu/norvin/www/somethingelse/murakami.html
- rockostrich 4y ago
  I enjoyed it a lot although it definitely leans heavy on all of his usual Murakami-isms while trying to do something new. It's been almost a decade since I read it so I can't say I remember it with a lot of detail. It receiving a "worst sex scene in literature award" doesn't really surprise me that much considering most of his books could be given that reward...
- zetazzed 4y ago
  I personally enjoyed 1Q84 slightly more than Kafka on the Shore, but if you actively disliked KotS, you probably won't like 1Q84 either. It has a bit more forward motion to the plot, but it is still in my opinion best enjoyed if you embrace the Murakami-style dreaminess. I love all of his books enough that I try to limit myself to reading one per year on vacation when I can really focus on it.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  I had read a few of his works before that one, and found it didn't reach as high of a bar. But it was fine. Personally most enjoyed Windup Bird Chronicle, Hardboiled Wonderland, Colorless Tsukuru. The bad/weird sex is kind of a trope in his books
- numtel 4y ago
  It's a very long book. It was good when I read it years ago but if "Kafka" didn't make you want to read it, I have a hard time imagining you'd like 1q84. That said, after that long book, I've been good on murakami. I tried too but felt like I wasn't gaining anything anymore.
barbariangrunge 4y ago
Many articles and books make it seem as though it might be reasonable to try and be a novelist The truth is that most short story publishers pay about 3-10 cents per word, so the pay for your work is usually less than $300-500. Most novels sell less than 1000 copies, and often far less; even then, the author might only get 10% of the price tag unless they self publish (but then sales are apparently 1/10 as high) If you earned half minimum wage, you would have cause to celebrate! Even authors of bestsellers often have day jobs unless they have a string of huge successes. That’s why we see so many sequels — less risk to the author who sees their chance to finally be a full time writer There are so many sites out there right now hosting free fiction that it’s hard for many to find readers, even if the work is released for free. Many authors I know spend more time on self promotion than in writing due to this: otherwise, nobody will ever read their work in the first place Publishers are now preferring authors who already have large followings, which reinforces this dynamic For some people, writing is a vocation, but for 99.999% of the others, it’s a dream or a hobby, or a way to meet like minded people and enjoy being part of a community Anyway: go out and read some small publisher books. Many are fantastic! There are a stunning number of great books around with 0-3 reviews that never had a shot — look for them sometime!
- unrealp 4y ago
  "There are so many sites out there right now hosting free fiction that it’s hard for many to find readers, even if the work is released for free. Many authors I know spend more time on self promotion than in writing due to this: otherwise, nobody will ever read their work in the first place" - first hand experience very true. I saw with kindle self publishing that, when the book is published, in the first week you do see some uptick, probably because it gets shown in some 'latest books' list. After that it dwindles. Mine went to zero after a week. Sold 24 copies. Its hard to make a book visible in millions of others.
- jobs_throwaway 4y ago
  +1 If money were no object, I'd love to be a novelist. I'd love nothing more than for books to be my main focus in life. But money is an object, and it seems tremendously hard to acquire as a writer. To make a decent living, you're basically banking on becoming one of a few dozen celebrity writers. Even then, you'd expect to make be making pennies compared to the elites in almost any other field (music, business, sports, etc). The only serious money to be made is franchising your IP into a more-monetizable medium, like movies. I know art isn't supposed to be about making money, but being a full-time novelist seems too precarious for all but the most foolhardy among us.
robinjhuang 4y ago
Many years ago I considered being a novelist. Until I read this quote by an acting professor at Yale that I’m now paraphrasing: you should only act, if acting is the only thing you can do. Spoiler: I didn’t become a novelist.
- only_papaya 4y ago
  I remember watching an interview from a famous movie director who had a similar thought. Again paraphrasing but: When asked, "How did you become so successful?" He responded, "Movies are my only hobby. I have nothing else."
- pastor_bob 4y ago
  Unless you're planning to get an MFA, people should first try to write a novel before worrying about being a novelist. The experience of actually writing is much different than thinking up a story in your head.
  - beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
    I often tell people that wonder about writing a novel the same thing: just try. Not to be a prick, but people simultaneously think it's way easier than it is and think it's way harder than it is. Most of the time is spent just getting through 2 hours-ish of writing a day, or 2-4 pages a day. Then rewriting a lot after the first draft. Most good readers aren't used to the rhythm of writing fiction, which is usually slower, and is far more about the accretion of detail rather than flying from plot point to plot point with seamless ease while you're reading. Making sure a novel is good is, almost always, very time demanding and requires its own set of skills (many mental). All that effort and time spent working alone is hidden from the reader breezing through a 350pg novel.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      I think so many different things are like this. I want to make a video game, or I want to make a movie, or I want to put out an album of music. The enemy of all these ambitions is attrition—you give up before you finish.

83 points by lermontov 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

> He describes it at one point as an “unadorned natural style”, but one that was arrived at in characteristically unorthodox fashion: having failed dismally on his first attempt to write what would become Hear the Wind Sing, he began again from scratch, writing not in his native Japanese, but English. “My vocabulary was severely limited, as was my command of English syntax,” he writes, and yet when he translated his words back into Japanese, the short, simple sentences created by those self-imposed limitations possessed “a distinctive rhythm”. That's interesting. I wonder if he still does that at least some of the time for his more recent books? The English translations I've read seem to be really good; I wonder if this technique/style has made the work the translators have to do a lot easier when they translate back into English or if it doesn't actually make much difference? It seems like it would at least lead to a tendency to avoid linguistic constructions and idioms that don't have fairly obvious English translations. It would be fun to be able to read Murukami's initial English draft side by side with the English version of the published book to see how similar they are.

Mikeb85 4y ago
> I wonder if he still does that at least some of the time for his more recent books? Don't think so however I have heard he proof-reads and adjusts the English translations after someone else translates them.
runevault 4y ago
I don't get the impression he expressly does this (aka writes it down then translates) but I think he does run through the mental filters to reach the same result. But I'm also still early into this book (only read the introduction and first two chapters).
retrac 4y ago
When I am struggling to express myself in English (my native language) I sometimes speak to myself for a bit in French. It's my second language and I'm not quite fluent in it. When I wish to express something in French, I often find myself forced to think beyond the surface words. I must discard how I would say it in English, and go for the idea underneath. I get hung up on a particular turn of phrase in English. How would I translate a phrasal verb like "hung up" into French? And does the idea even translate that way? What I mean is fixated, stuck, obsessed, misled by chasing the wrong thing. There are many ways to express it besides "hung up on". Which is a very native English speaker thing to say, but bad style, now that I look at it. Fixated would have been better. Fixé.
- kranner 4y ago
  Idée fixe, perhaps?

georgex7 4y ago

I wrote a pretty detailed blog post about Murakami's background and how he was able to create an emotionally powerful masterpiece in Norwegian Wood: https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/reading-guide-norwegian-wood https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/reading-guide-norwegia.... Hope you guys enjoy :)

ctchocula 4y ago
Norwegian Wood is one of my favourites, so I look forward to reading it. Thanks for sharing!

no_butterscotch 4y ago

Was IQ84 any good? I meant to read it a while back but the wiki page scared me off - it won a "worst sex scene in literature award" and wasn't well liked by critics. I read two other stories by him (Kafka on the Shore and some short story about Yakuza). Neither really made me hunger for more though.

elteto 4y ago
I haven’t read anything else from Murakami but The Second Bakery Attack and absolutely loved it. It’s a short story so quick to read, and thoroughly enjoyable. Might want to give that a try! [0] https://web.mit.edu/norvin/www/somethingelse/murakami.html https://web.mit.edu/norvin/www/somethingelse/murakami.html
rockostrich 4y ago
I enjoyed it a lot although it definitely leans heavy on all of his usual Murakami-isms while trying to do something new. It's been almost a decade since I read it so I can't say I remember it with a lot of detail. It receiving a "worst sex scene in literature award" doesn't really surprise me that much considering most of his books could be given that reward...
zetazzed 4y ago
I personally enjoyed 1Q84 slightly more than Kafka on the Shore, but if you actively disliked KotS, you probably won't like 1Q84 either. It has a bit more forward motion to the plot, but it is still in my opinion best enjoyed if you embrace the Murakami-style dreaminess. I love all of his books enough that I try to limit myself to reading one per year on vacation when I can really focus on it.
slothtrop 4y ago
I had read a few of his works before that one, and found it didn't reach as high of a bar. But it was fine. Personally most enjoyed Windup Bird Chronicle, Hardboiled Wonderland, Colorless Tsukuru. The bad/weird sex is kind of a trope in his books
numtel 4y ago
It's a very long book. It was good when I read it years ago but if "Kafka" didn't make you want to read it, I have a hard time imagining you'd like 1q84. That said, after that long book, I've been good on murakami. I tried too but felt like I wasn't gaining anything anymore.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

Many articles and books make it seem as though it might be reasonable to try and be a novelist The truth is that most short story publishers pay about 3-10 cents per word, so the pay for your work is usually less than $300-500. Most novels sell less than 1000 copies, and often far less; even then, the author might only get 10% of the price tag unless they self publish (but then sales are apparently 1/10 as high) If you earned half minimum wage, you would have cause to celebrate! Even authors of bestsellers often have day jobs unless they have a string of huge successes. That’s why we see so many sequels — less risk to the author who sees their chance to finally be a full time writer There are so many sites out there right now hosting free fiction that it’s hard for many to find readers, even if the work is released for free. Many authors I know spend more time on self promotion than in writing due to this: otherwise, nobody will ever read their work in the first place Publishers are now preferring authors who already have large followings, which reinforces this dynamic For some people, writing is a vocation, but for 99.999% of the others, it’s a dream or a hobby, or a way to meet like minded people and enjoy being part of a community Anyway: go out and read some small publisher books. Many are fantastic! There are a stunning number of great books around with 0-3 reviews that never had a shot — look for them sometime!

unrealp 4y ago
"There are so many sites out there right now hosting free fiction that it’s hard for many to find readers, even if the work is released for free. Many authors I know spend more time on self promotion than in writing due to this: otherwise, nobody will ever read their work in the first place" - first hand experience very true. I saw with kindle self publishing that, when the book is published, in the first week you do see some uptick, probably because it gets shown in some 'latest books' list. After that it dwindles. Mine went to zero after a week. Sold 24 copies. Its hard to make a book visible in millions of others.
jobs_throwaway 4y ago
+1 If money were no object, I'd love to be a novelist. I'd love nothing more than for books to be my main focus in life. But money is an object, and it seems tremendously hard to acquire as a writer. To make a decent living, you're basically banking on becoming one of a few dozen celebrity writers. Even then, you'd expect to make be making pennies compared to the elites in almost any other field (music, business, sports, etc). The only serious money to be made is franchising your IP into a more-monetizable medium, like movies. I know art isn't supposed to be about making money, but being a full-time novelist seems too precarious for all but the most foolhardy among us.

robinjhuang 4y ago

Many years ago I considered being a novelist. Until I read this quote by an acting professor at Yale that I’m now paraphrasing: you should only act, if acting is the only thing you can do. Spoiler: I didn’t become a novelist.

only_papaya 4y ago
I remember watching an interview from a famous movie director who had a similar thought. Again paraphrasing but: When asked, "How did you become so successful?" He responded, "Movies are my only hobby. I have nothing else."
pastor_bob 4y ago
Unless you're planning to get an MFA, people should first try to write a novel before worrying about being a novelist. The experience of actually writing is much different than thinking up a story in your head.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
  I often tell people that wonder about writing a novel the same thing: just try. Not to be a prick, but people simultaneously think it's way easier than it is and think it's way harder than it is. Most of the time is spent just getting through 2 hours-ish of writing a day, or 2-4 pages a day. Then rewriting a lot after the first draft. Most good readers aren't used to the rhythm of writing fiction, which is usually slower, and is far more about the accretion of detail rather than flying from plot point to plot point with seamless ease while you're reading. Making sure a novel is good is, almost always, very time demanding and requires its own set of skills (many mental). All that effort and time spent working alone is hidden from the reader breezing through a 350pg novel.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    I think so many different things are like this. I want to make a video game, or I want to make a movie, or I want to put out an album of music. The enemy of all these ambitions is attrition—you give up before you finish.