To the topic "Haruki Murakami Library" to Waseda University International Literature Museum!Deeply digging in a report and column with the stage of the person

It was a quiet Saturday in November when everything seemed to be clear.

On November 13th, the 4th recitation event "Authors Alive! ~ Let's meet the authors ~" was held at Waseda University International Literature Museum, also known as "Haruki Murakami Library" which just opened in October. I was.

Haruki Murakami himself took the stage at this event, titled "About Music." In the audio room where you can listen to the records donated and entrusted by Mr. Murakami, it was a luxurious event where you could listen to the actual voice and records with "acoustic equipment that is as close as possible to the listening environment of the person himself".

Mr. Murakami, who ran a jazz cafe in the 1970s. His novels are also famous for the frequent appearances of a huge amount of music.

For example, in the novel "Kafka on the Shore", Radiohead "Kid A" and Prince "Sexy Motherfucker" also appear, showing his insatiable curiosity and deep knowledge of music.

On this day, Mr. Murakami said, "I want to live in jazz," while reading his own translation of "Stan Getz Living Music" (written by Donald L. McGuinn, Shinchosha), the great jazz giant, I traced the later years of Stan Getz while playing analog records.

This audio room was selected and set up by Koji Onodera, former editor-in-chief of the magazine "Stereo Sound".

The record player is "LUXMAN PD-171A", the integrated amplifier is "Accuphase E-380", and the speakers are "JBL L82 Classic" and "Sonus faber LUMINA III".

Although I am unskilled in audio, I felt that the volume was not too loud, and the sound image was clear and comfortable, conveying the delicate nuances of a live performance to the fullest extent.

While praising his music as "a genius who can play any reed instrument" and "spinning a melody like a silkworm spits out silk", "Stan Getz's music is built on sacrifice." I will talk about how I indulge in drugs and alcohol. “That makes the music more beautiful,” he said. The slightly stuttering performance of "Lover Come Back to Me" when he co-starred with Billie Holiday, who was a fan, "A Summer Afternoon" that he listened to when he was a high school student, and "Corcovado" that was close to bossa nova.

While playing a number of great performances, Stan Getz said, "Even though life was in tatters, the soul that pursued beauty didn't stop walking." I will rate it.

What seems to overlap with the state that Mr. Murakami is aiming for in his novels is the perspective of a long-time reader.

Occasionally, when the applause of us living in 21st century Tokyo overlaps with the applause of the 20th century audience, it feels like a record player is like a time machine, as if we were lost in another world. there was.

12 songs from "Early Autumn" in 1948 to "First Song" played in 1991, three months before his death. It was two hours without a second of boredom.

In addition, it seems that part of this day's talk will be broadcast on TOKYO FM within the year.

Haruki Murakami "About Music" Playlist

1. "Early Autumn" (Woody Herman Orchestra, 1948) 2. "Split Kick" "Dear Old Stockholm" (Roost, 1949) 3. "Move" (live at Storyville, Boston, 1951) 4. "Lover Come Back to Me" (with Billie Holiday, live at "Storyville", 1951) 5. 'These Foolish Things' (1952 album Stan Getz Plays) 6. 'It Don't Mean a Thing' (with Dizzy Gillespie, 1955 album 'Diz & Getz') 7. 'Cherokee' (Lionel 8. 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most' (Live at New York's Village Gate, 1961) 9. 'A Summer Afternoon' (1961) Album "Focus") 10. "Corcovado" (with Joao Gilberto, album "Getz/Gilberto", 1964) 11. "La Fiesta" (live at the "Montreux Jazz Festival" in 1972) 12. "First Song" (live at Café Montmartre, Denmark, 1991)

TOKYO FM "Murakami RADIO"

・Official website・"Authors Alive! ~Let's meet the author~" Spotify page

Just like Haruki Murakami's theme park! A quick introduction to Waseda University International Literature Museum (Haruki Murakami Library) It's a rush, but I would like to introduce it.

The museum serves as a place for research and dissemination of not only Murakami literature, but also international literature and translated literature. Based on the concept of "Let's open up stories, let's talk about our hearts," Murakami says, "I hope that this place will become a place for international exchange and exchange of literature and culture." .

The wooden arch that mimics a tunnel is stunning. Kengo Kuma, the architect who renovated the inside of the building, said that "the feeling of being sucked into a tunnel" is an imitation of Murakami's novel, "The structure of going to another world and returning". mosquito.

Gallery lounge on the first floor. You can browse Mr. Murakami's novels, as well as a huge number of books translated overseas. I'm going to have it for the rest of my life!

The neon sign of Saturn used as a stage art set for the play Kafka on the Shore, directed by Yukio Ninagawa.

The Sheep Man from "Hitsugu wo Meguru Boken" and "Dance, Dance, Dance"! This is said to have been drawn by Mr. Murakami himself. I did not know that.

Inspiration! It is an illustration of a T-shirt that suddenly appears on page 61 of the paperback version of her debut work "Listen to the Wind's Song". I float.

"The T-shirt arrived in the mail on the afternoon of the third day. This is the shirt."

This room is a replica of Mr. Murakami's home study with almost the same floor plan. This is an outside tour only.

The grand piano used at the jazz cafe "Peter Cat" that Murakami opened while he was in college.

On the first basement floor, there is a cafe where you can taste donuts and coffee, which is run by students of Waseda University, aiming to create a space where people and stories can come into contact with each other.

Waseda University Museum of International Literature (Haruki Murakami Library)

This is a museum and cultural exchange facility for studying international literature, starting with the literature of Haruki Murakami. The 3rd to 5th floors are research spaces reserved for researchers of international literature and Murakami literature.・Address: 1-6-1 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo｜Map ・Business hours: 10:00 to 17:00 ・Closed: Wednesdays in principle ・Advance reservations on the website are required for entry.

Column "Haruki Murakami and Waseda University"

When it comes to works that project the times when Haruki Murakami was enrolled at Waseda University, the biggest hit is "Norwegian Wood". I can't help but remember.

Even here at Waseda University, the student movement was intensifying at the time, and it is said that extremist students lined up chairs and desks at the main gate and set them on fire.

Although "Norwegian Wood" is billed as a "100% romance novel," the student movement is also portrayed with realism and a ruthless touch, accompanied by a sense of powerlessness.

In later years, looking back on the days of the student movement, Mr. Murakami said that he lost faith in words and distrusted words that were pleasing to the ear. Even in the work, ``The true enemy of these people is not the power of the state, but the lack of imagination.'' However, the main character, Watanabe, suffers from being part of the secular world.

There is a scene in "Norwegian Wood" that touched me so much that I drew a highlighter pen, folded the page, and copied it into my notebook. This is the scene where he talks to his dead friend, Kizuki.

"I used to want to stay seventeen or eighteen if I could. But now I don't think so. I'm not a teenage boy anymore. I'm responsible. Hey Kizuki, I'm not who I was when I was with you, I'm 20 now, and I've got to pay the price to stay alive That's right."

From the first person, "I", it seems that the trembling of his heart is exposed without pretense.

I was neither a boy in my teens nor a young man in my twenties.

What kind of image do you have of Haruki Murakami? Ironically, he evades his true intentions, enjoys witty conversations and stylish music, and enjoys drinking, becoming unreasonably popular with a mysterious woman. I think that it is completely different from the image that is used as a joke on the Internet.

Frankly speaking, the preface, which says, "For many festivals (hueto)," contains his love and hate for the tumultuous era of Zenkyoto, which he spent while keeping his distance. it might be.

"Haruki Murakami goes to meet Hayao Kawai" has a passage "from detachment to commitment". I interpret it as an attitude of getting involved with the world, no matter how modest, rather than keeping a distance from society. From "Underground", which dealt with a series of incidents of Aum Shinrikyo, to "Killing Commendatore" and "1Q84" in recent years, you can't feel the power of a strong determination to regain hope, not to end with loss. I can't stay.

Mr. Murakami says in "Novelist as a Profession", "You can write sentences like playing music." In his early essays, he almost said that he had no particular message.

Mr. Murakami said he experienced a "bad disappointment" from the student movement. This place will be peacefully "reoccupied" by the "Haruki Murakami Library".

If his way of doing things is the result of Mr. Murakami's student struggle. If it's "how to take responsibility for becoming an adult".

"No matter how right the wall is and how wrong the egg is, stand by the egg." It may be his own tough and hard-boiled way of life that does not betray the speech he made when he received the Jerusalem Prize.

"There is no such thing as perfect writing. Just as there is no perfect despair."

Like many boys and girls, I dreamed of becoming a novelist or a musician in a corner of a local city. I want to be even now.

I forgot about it until I wrote this, but my stage name "Mehldau Takano" was taken from Haruki Murakami's debut novel "Listen to the Wind Sing".

On a side note, I would like to ask my classmate Hayashi-kun, who wrote a parody novel called "Norwegian Forest" when he was in high school. If I hadn't stopped writing and making music because of reading your silly novels, I would have finally met Haruki Murakami. I'm sorry I can't go to the funeral.

"Shit (Mehldau)."

Sentence / Meldau Takano A guitarist who loves the color purple. He is in charge of guitar and piano at SuiseiNoboAz and others. On November 24, 2021, the one-man live DVD "MARK 3020" will be released. The album "3020" is now on sale. "App Get" has played thousands of smartphone games and introduced them every day. Favorites include "MOTHER", the "Earth Defense Force" series, and "Tell Me Goodbye". I love saunas, public baths, and motsuyaki. The temperature of my favorite water bath is 16 degrees. My favorite ramen is Ogikubo's "Misokko Fuku".

SuiseiNoboAz “MARK 3020” (DVD) now on sale ¥3,500 (excluding tax) Click here for details.

First-time production limited privilege: 2DVD specification that includes a full-length (about 120 minutes) video of the non-audience performance "LIVE 3020" held in August 2020 before the release of the album "3020". * It will end as soon as it runs out.

Edited by Fuku Annie