What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (走ることについて語るときに僕の語ること)

A beautiful piece by Haruki Murakami that I read recently in the New Yorker made me pick up his collection of essays titled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (走ることについて語るときに僕の語ること). The New Yorker piece is an excerpt from this book, where he talks generally about two aspects of his life. The first is how he got started on writing and his writing habits and process. The second and complementary aspect is how he started running, his one-marathon-per-year schedule, how he trains for that and how running is a huge part of his life.

These pieces cannot be called essays, but are more like long diary entries, which actually makes them more personal. These were written during the 2005-2006 period which he spent in Hawaii, Boston and Tokyo. During this period he trained and ran the New York Marathon and a triathlon back home. There is no unidirectional flow to the writings, they ramble anywhere from recollections of his 20s to his present self at the time of writing. It is important to note that by the time he writing these essays, he is well established and famous author. Not only is he churning out his own books, he also writes short stories and does translations of current novels in English for a Japanese audience back home. In short, he is not a struggling author, he has offices in both Japan and USA, with staff handling his publication and PR.

The book as a whole is a good read. The writings themselves range from fantastic reads to good ramblings. Some of the earliest pieces which talk about his life before writing, how he started writing and how he started running are must-reads. The latter half of the book where he mostly shares his experiences of training and running various marathons would be interesting only to runners (I guess). What comes through though is that this man is extremely hardworking and professional in all aspects of his life. He writes every day and runs every day, no matter how his mood is. Even at his past-middle age, he is so well honed in both of these that he regularly runs marathons (and triathlons!) and churns out highly-rated novels. It is wonderful to see the process revealed by the person himself.

The book is a short and quick read and a must for Murakami fans and those interested in running. It also acts as a good insight into the author himself, probably the closest he will come to an autobiography.

Rating: 3/4

ISBN: 0099526158