I know it is a bit late to post this, but classic pieces do sells sometimes. As I am currently reading Murakami's Kafka on The Shore and starting to list Murakami and his work in my favourite list, I decided to post his acceptance speech during Jurusalem Prize Award last January 2009 in my blog. Realizing I never post this, and wondering why I haven't post this back in January, probably I was a bit busy with Japan immigration (visa etc.) at that moment, so I totally forgotten about this great speech.
日本語オリジナル：
『常に卵の側に』
村上春樹
今、僕はエルサレムにやって来ました。小説家、すなわち嘘の紡ぎ手として。
嘘をつくのは小説家だけではありません。政治家も——失礼、大統領閣下——外交官も嘘をつきます。でも、小説家は他の人たちとは少し違っています。僕たちは嘘をついたことで追及を受けたりしません。賞賛されるのです。しかも、その嘘が大きくて立派であるほど、賞賛も大きくなります。
僕たちの嘘と彼らの嘘との違いは、僕たちの嘘は真実を明るみに運び出すためのものだ、ということです。真実をそっくりそのままの形で把握するのは難しいことです。だから僕たちはそれをフィクションという形に変換するのです。でもまず手始めに、自分たち自身の中のどこに真実が潜んでいるかを明らかにしなければなりません。
今日、僕は真実をお話ししようと思います。僕が嘘をつくことに従事しないのは年に数日だけですが、今日はそのうちの一日なんです。
受賞の申し出を受けたとき、僕はエルサレムへ行かないようにという警告を受けました。僕は自問自答しました。イスラエルに行くのは適切なことだろうか？ 当事者の一方を支持することにならないだろうか？ そして、圧倒的な軍事力を解き放つという選択を下した国家の政策を是認することになってしまわないだろうかと。考えた末に、僕は来ることに決めました。たいていの小説家と同じように、僕もまた、人から言われたのと正反対のことをするのが好きなんです。やれやれ、これは小説家としての性みたいなものですね。小説家というのは、自分の目で見て、自分の手で触れたものしか信じることができないんです。だから僕は、自分の目で見ることを選びました。黙っているよりも、ここへ来て話すことを選びました。それは、僕がいつも心に留めていることです。小説を書くとき、いつも心に留めているのです。紙に書いて壁に貼ろうとまで思ったことはありませんが、僕の心の壁には刻まれています。言ってみれば、こういうことですーー
『硬くて高い壁と、そこにぶつかって行く一個の卵があったとしたら、たとえ壁がどんなに正しくても、卵がどんなに間違っていたとしても、僕は卵の側に立つ』
僕らはみんな、一人ひとりが一個の卵なのです。壊れやすい殻に入った、唯一無二の魂なのです。僕らはみんな、高い壁に立ち向かっています。壁とはつまりシステムのことです。しばしば一人歩きを始めて、私たちを殺したり、冷たく、効率的に、システマティックに他人を殺すように、私たちに仕向けたりするシステムのことです。
僕にとって、小説を書く目的はひとつだけです。それは、個人が持つ独自の尊厳を引き出すことです。独自性を満たし、システムにからめ取られないようにすることです。だから——僕は、生命の物語を、愛の物語を、人を笑わせ、泣かせる物語を書くのです。見た限りでは、私たちには希望が無いように思えます。壁はあまりに高く、あまりに強い。もし私たちに勝利への何らかの希望があるとすれば、それは私たちの完全なる独自性を信じることと、魂を結び合う温もり※から来るものでなければならないでしょう。 私たちひとりひとりには、形ある、生きた魂があります。システムにはそんなものはありません。システムに私たちをコントロールさせてはいけないのです。システムが私たちを作るのではありません。私たちがシステムを作ったのです。
イスラエルの皆さん、僕の本を読んでくださったことに感謝します。僕たちが意義のある何かを共有できていれば嬉しいです。あなたたちこそ、僕がここへ来た最大の理由です。
English version:
Always on the side of the egg
By Haruki Murakami
So I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, (sorry, Mr. President) as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling them. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies - which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true - the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.
So let me tell you the truth. A fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came.
The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza. The UN reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded Gaza City, many of them unarmed citizens - children and old people.
Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. This is an impression, of course, that I would not wish to give. I do not approve of any war, and I do not support any nation. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.
Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me - and especially if they are warning me - "don’t go there," "don’t do that," I tend to want to "go there" and "do that." It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.
And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.
This is not to say that I am here to deliver a political message. To make judgments about right and wrong is one of the novelist’s most important duties, of course.
It is left to each writer, however, to decide upon the form in which he or she will convey those judgments to others. I myself prefer to transform them into stories - stories that tend toward the surreal. Which is why I do not intend to stand before you today delivering a direct political message.
Please do, however, allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: Rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.
This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: It is The System. The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others - coldly, efficiently, systematically.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories - stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
My father died last year at the age of 90. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the war.
He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.
I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong - and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.
Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow The System to exploit us. We must not allow The System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: We made The System.
That is all I have to say to you.
I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.
How I adore him.
Self note:
1. I have two presentations need to be done starting end of this month in my lab's seminar. First, about my degree graduation thesis. Considering the thesis itself was presented three years ago, presenting it now need proper preparation and definitely I need to read my thesis back. Sigh. Not an interesting thing to do after all. Secondly is about a paper by McKinsey & Co. Climate Desk regarding Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy: Version 2 of the Global Greenhouse Gas (Abatement Cost Curve) where I am required to present about the topics of Chemical, Transport and Buildings.
2. Still slowly reading Kafka on The Shore. Watching Swing Girls directed by Shinobu Yaguchi because of my mood to learn how to play the sax. And on my heavy rotation is Aqua Timez's Kira-Kira ~original ver.~ (from Kirin's TV commercial) and Arashi's Season (from au TV commercial where Sakurai Sho innit). Yes, I am a commercial freak.
Have a nice weekend, people.
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