Chapter 110 Respect for Literature

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The afternoon of the day the special edition went on sale.

Suginami Ward, Haruki Murakami's private study.

The record player that always played jazz music didn't turn on today, for the first time ever.

The only sound in the study was the extremely faint rustling of pages as they were turned.

Haruki Murakami sat quietly at his large oak desk.

In front of him lay a newly purchased white special edition, still smelling of fresh ink.

He didn't even bother to look at his own highly anticipated piece, "Tony Falls Valley," but instead went straight to the beginning of the book and looked at Kitahara Iwao's "Railway Man."

As Haruki Murakami turns the last page.

An extremely long, deathly silence fell over the study.

Haruki Murakami leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on a meaningless dot in mid-air, and remained silent.

His hand remained on the magazine, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the rough texture of the paper, his whole being like a sculpture whose emotions had been completely drained.

Five minutes passed before he slowly exhaled a long breath and pushed the special edition to the opposite side of the desk.

At the other end of the long table sat Murakami Ryu.

This maverick genius, known for his unruly and unrestrained style in the Japanese literary world, unusually restrained all his arrogance today. He sat quietly there from the moment he entered, patiently waiting for Haruki Murakami to finish reading.

"Take a look."

At this moment, Haruki Murakami's voice was a little hoarse, and he only said these three words.

Murakami Ryu raised an eyebrow and reached out to snatch the special edition.

Then he took out an expensive cigar from the inside pocket of his suit, habitually put it in his mouth, but did not light it, and directly opened the magazine.

His reading habits have always been extremely aggressive; instead of savoring each word and sentence, he reads like a beast, rapidly tearing apart the skeleton of the text with an almost sweeping gaze.

But today, his movements as he turned the pages became increasingly sluggish.

From page five onwards, his fingers froze completely.

When Murakami Ryu read about Sato Otsumatsu standing alone on the platform in his crisp uniform on the day his wife passed away, his brows furrowed into a tight knot very slowly.

This is by no means out of critical aversion, but rather a struggle of being hit hard in the face by something extremely heavy, yet stubbornly refusing to collapse.

The last few pages were extremely difficult for Murakami Ryu to read.

On New Year's Eve, amidst heavy snow and an empty, abandoned platform, a young girl in a red coat, like a flame, smiled and walked towards the old stationmaster through the snowstorm.

"dad."

Upon seeing those two words, Murakami Ryu's breath caught in his throat.

He stared at it for a long time without moving before finally closing the special issue very slowly.

The study was now enveloped in an even deeper silence than before.

Murakami Ryu took the unlit cigar from the corner of his mouth, unconsciously fiddled with it between his fingers for a couple of moments, and then casually tossed it into the ashtray.

At that moment, Murakami Ryu raised his head and looked at Murakami Haruki opposite him with an extremely complicated expression, saying, "Haruki."

"Your piece, 'Tony Falls Valley,' was relegated to the bottom of the first page... You deserved the best for losing."

Haruki Murakami knows better than anyone how terrifying the weight of these words carries when they come from his mouth.

Ryu Murakami is an extremely arrogant man who has spent his entire life challenging the world. Getting him to admit that someone else writes better is practically impossible.

Upon hearing his old friend's merciless pronouncement, Haruki Murakami smiled slightly.

There was not a trace of bitterness at being overshadowed in his smile, nor any resentment at the mutual disdain among intellectuals.

Rather, it is an extremely pure joy that only a top seeker of the Dao can experience when, at the very pinnacle, he finally sees another incredible peak.

"I want to see him."

Haruki Murakami picked up the whiskey beside him and drank the cool liquid in one gulp.

At this moment, Haruki Murakami put down his wine glass, his eyes shining with an unprecedented brightness: "To be able to write such words that make all of Japan weep in this devastating winter... I must see with my own eyes what kind of person this Kitahara-sensei really is."

That afternoon.

Kadokawa Shoten headquarters, Otani Kamiya's office.

The red internal telephone on the desk rang without warning.

Da Gu Shenying quickly answered the receiver. The moment he heard the name announced on the other end, the pen he was signing suddenly stopped, and the ink smeared a black dot on the document.

"Haruki Murakami?"

"Editor-in-Chief Otani, I have a personal matter I'd like to ask you."

On the other end of the phone, Haruki Murakami's voice was as calm as ever: "Could you give me Kitahara Iwao-sensei's personal contact information? I'd like to invite him for a drink privately."

Upon hearing this, Da Gu Shen Ying was completely stunned.

It took him a full two seconds to recover from his extreme shock and he quickly agreed.

After hanging up the phone, the senior editor-in-chief, who had been in the industry for twenty years, leaned back in his chair and remained stunned for a long time.

This was absolutely unprecedented in his career.

That evening, at 3:30, the landline in Kitahara Iwa's study rang.

"Mr. Kitahara, it's a bit abrupt of you to contact me for the first time. I am Haruki Murakami."

The voice on the other end of the phone was extremely reserved, carrying the kind of measured distance characteristic of Japanese intellectuals.

"I read your book 'Railway Man' today, and my heart is still filled with emotion."

"Would you be free to have a drink with me tonight?"

Upon hearing this, Kitahara Iwa's face immediately lit up with a smile, and he quickly replied, "It would be my honor. Murakami-sensei, please decide on the location."

That evening, at exactly eight o'clock.

Tokyo, Kagurazaka.

Deep within a quiet alley paved with bluestone slabs lies a high-class, secluded izakaya without any signboard.

The heavy wooden sliding doors were tightly closed, with only a tiny, dim yellow paper lantern hanging at the entrance, suggesting that the place was still open for business.

This is a private diner that operates on a strict membership system, and the owner never reveals the identity of any customer.

This is also one of the few places in Tokyo that Haruki Murakami, who has an extreme aversion to socializing, is willing to set foot in.

Kitahara Iwa pushed open the paper sliding door of the private room and walked in with complete ease.

The private room wasn't very big.

A low, century-old solid wood table sits on the tatami mat.

Several exquisitely prepared appetizers were already laid out on the table, along with a bottle of freshly chilled premium Junmai Daiginjo sake from Dassai Shuzo.

Haruki Murakami sat in the main seat at the back, wearing a dark gray turtleneck sweater, exuding a cool and clean aura.

Beside him sat Murakami Ryu, cross-legged.

This eccentric genius was wearing a very aggressive black leather jacket today.

He had an unlit Cuban cigar dangling from his mouth and leaned casually against the wall.

The moment Kitahara Iwa entered, Murakami Ryu's gaze went straight past the wooden table and landed on him without any hesitation.

Murakami Ryu narrowed his eyes slightly, scrutinizing the young man before him with an almost anatomical gaze.

He seemed to want to see through this still very young body and figure out what kind of unfathomable soul was hidden inside, in order to write the profound sense of vicissitude and wounds that was found in "Railway Man".

Facing these two absolute giants who currently dominate the pyramid of Japanese literature, Kitahara Iwao did not show the slightest bit of unease as a newcomer.

Kitahara Iwa took off his coat and draped it to his side, then sat down opposite the two men with remarkable composure.

He glanced at the two names before him, names that would later be considered legendary, gave a slight bow, and calmly looked at Haruki Murakami directly opposite him, breaking the silence in the private room by speaking first: "I've long admired your name, Mr. Murakami. Thank you for your invitation tonight."

Upon hearing this extremely appropriate and humble opening remark, Haruki Murakami smiled gently.

"Not at all, it is my honor to have Kitahara-sensei here."

As he spoke, Haruki Murakami leaned forward slightly and very naturally picked up the chilled sake bottle on the table, preparing to pour sake for Kitahara Iwa, his guest of honor.

But Kitahara Iwa quickly reached out and deftly blocked the drink, then took the sake bottle from Murakami Haruki's hand, saying, "It's our first meeting, so it's only right that I do it."

After taking the sake pot, Kitahara Iwa first filled the sake cup in front of Murakami Haruki to about seven-tenths full.

He then turned his wrist and nodded slightly to Murakami Ryu, who was smoking a cigar and looking at him with great interest, pouring him a glass before finally filling his own.

Kitahara Iwa put down the sake pot, raised his own sake cup, looked at Murakami Haruki, and continued, "Speaking of which, I've always been your reader."

Haruki Murakami raised his wine glass with both hands, gazing at the young man who was nearly twenty years younger than him, a hint of a smile suddenly appearing in his eyes.

"Please don't say that, Kitahara-sensei."

Haruki Murakami lowered his glass slightly as a sign of respect, and said with a tone of heartfelt admiration, "After reading 'Railroad Man' this morning... I am now your reader."

The two wine glasses touched lightly in mid-air, producing an extremely crisp sound that will resonate throughout the history of Japanese publishing.

Just then, Murakami Ryu, who had been left waiting for half a day, finally moved.

He ripped the cigar from his mouth, deliberately put on a stern face, and raised his eyebrows as he looked at Kitahara Iwa.

"Hey, Kitahara."

Murakami Ryu tapped his chest heavily with the finger holding his cigar, his tone dripping with biting sarcasm: "When you came in just now, you only called out Haruki's name. What, the great author of 'Railroad Man' isn't one of my readers, Murakami Ryu?"

There was an eerie silence in the private room for a second.

The next second, all three of them burst into laughter at the same time.

Haruki Murakami's laughter remained restrained, but extremely relaxed.

Ryu Murakami's laughter carries his signature unbridled and arrogant nature.

Kitahara Iwa's smile remained gentle.

Kitahara Iwa raised his sake cup and tilted it slightly towards Murakami Ryu: "Of course. Your book, 'Almost Transparent Blue,' was a book I kept under my pillow and read until it was worn out during my student days."

Of course, what impacted Kitahara Iwa the most was not this book, but the one titled "Suicide is Sex".

Of course, this collection of essays only has a somewhat striking title; the content inside is quite formal.

Murakami Ryu snorted coldly, his guard down, and he contentedly took out a match, lit the cigar in his mouth, and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.

At this moment, three men representing the pinnacle of Japanese literature used this extremely relaxed joke to throw aside the literary barriers of "seniority" and the initial awkwardness of their first meeting in less than a minute.

After several rounds of drinks...

The side dishes on the table were almost finished, and the bottle of premium Junmai Daiginjo sake was also empty.

A very faint blush appeared on Haruki Murakami's face, but his eyes were brighter than when he had just entered.

At this moment, he put down his wine glass, leaned forward slightly, and looked across the table at Kitahara Iwa across from him.

"Teacher Kitahara, there's something I've been thinking about ever since I finished reading 'Railroad Man' this morning."

Haruki Murakami began by asking, "The unfathomable sense of despair emanating from the character Otsumatsu Sato..."

"It's not the kind of despair wrapped in refined rhetoric, but a raw, real despair, as if you could directly smell the rust and the cold snow water..."

"How exactly did you come up with this idea?"

This is an extremely direct question.

Kitahara Iwa held his wine glass, remained silent for two or three seconds, and then said, "Because the stock market crash is just the most superficial illusion of this avalanche."

Kitahara Iwa's voice was very steady.

"Japanese companies today are facing a triple crisis: excess equipment, excess debt, and excess personnel."

Upon hearing these three highly technical economic terms, Haruki Murakami narrowed his eyes slightly.

Murakami Ryu, who was originally preparing to flick his cigarette ash, immediately perked up.

"The rampant expansion of production capacity and the bottomless borrowing during the economic boom have now all become black holes that devour profits."

"And for capital to survive, the first and only target it will ever cut is people."

"I've recently noticed that several large conglomerates have begun to secretly freeze formal hiring for recent graduates. This is something that has never happened in postwar Japan."

At this point, Kitahara Iwao raised his head and looked at the two people in front of him, saying, "What does this mean? It means that the door to Japan's once-proud lifetime employment system is being welded shut."

"Starting this year, more and more people in this country will be ruthlessly excluded from the system."

"And those ordinary people who have worked diligently within the system for decades, like Sato Otsumatsu, may suddenly receive a layoff notice on an extremely ordinary morning, and then despairingly discover that the vast system to which they have dedicated their lives simply does not care who they are."

"The character Sato Otsumatsu in 'Railroad Man' was never a character I made up out of thin air."

"He is a tragic shadow that countless Japanese people will share in over the next ten or even twenty years."

"I simply embodied an inevitable historical pain in an old railway worker."

As Kitahara Iwa finished speaking, the entire private room fell into a deathly silence.

Haruki Murakami slowly sat up straight, his fingers unconsciously tracing the rim of his wine glass. He remained silent for a long time, his eyes flashing with an extremely complex light.

After a long while, Haruki Murakami finally let out a long breath.

"I heard Mr. Shigeo Saito, a leading figure in documentary literature, mention you before, saying that you have an extremely terrifying ability to observe the lower classes of Japanese society."

Haruki Murakami raised his glass and solemnly raised it towards Kitahara Iwa with both hands.

"After hearing what you said today, I finally understand. Kitahara-sensei, when you write novels, your mind isn't just filled with the joys and sorrows of the characters and plots..."

"And the blueprints for how the entire Japanese society operates."

"This kind of grand vision cannot be possessed by so-called literary talent alone."

As the conversation deepened, the second bottle of Daiginjo sake was opened, and the atmosphere in the private room became increasingly relaxed and harmonious.

The conversation between the three naturally shifted from grand social analyses to their most private creative plans.

"What does Murakami-sensei plan to write about next?"

Kitahara Iwa refilled Murakami Haruki's glass of wine and casually asked a question.

Haruki Murakami took the glass, his gaze becoming somewhat unfocused, as if he were trying to pierce through a wall to chase after some idea that had not yet taken shape.

"Lately, I've been enveloped by the atmosphere of the times, and a strange image keeps popping into my head that I can't shake off."

Haruki Murakami took a sip of his drink, his speech slowing down as if he were trying to retrieve something from the depths of his hazy consciousness.

"It's probably a story about 'television.' One day, several extremely short people carried a television set into an ordinary man's house. They didn't say a word, just set up the television, plugged it in, and left without a sound."

He paused for a moment, his gaze falling on the swirling liquid in the glass.

"From then on, the television, which no one ever turned on, just stood quietly in the room. And the man's wife seemed completely unaware that this had happened."

At this point, Haruki Murakami gave a self-deprecating smile: "Let's tentatively call it 'Television People.' But who knows what it will actually be like?"

Kitahara Iwa's hand holding the wine glass paused slightly.

Television People.

In his past life's memories, this was a short story published by Haruki Murakami in 1990, which was later included in a collection of short stories of the same name, becoming an extremely unique piece in Murakami's creative lineage.

The television set, forcibly crammed into daily life and ignored by everyone, has been interpreted by countless commentators in later generations as the silent invasion of the individual by the media in modern society.

You don't even know when it came, but it has already changed your entire life.

Kitahara Iwa nodded and said, "It sounds like an extremely pure Murakami-style fable. I'm really looking forward to it."

Haruki Murakami smiled, then changed the subject, his clear eyes fixed on Kitahara Iwao as he asked, "And what about you, Kitahara? You won two awards, and just now you used the snow of an entire Hokkaido province to mourn this era."

"Is the next step to tackle an even grander, epic masterpiece?"

Murakami Ryuya, standing nearby, also became interested, his gaze fixed intently on Kitahara Iwa.

Kitahara Iwa gently swirled the wine glass in his hand, and the amber liquid left a transparent watermark on the glass.

"No."

Kitahara Iwao's answer was extremely brief: "I plan to go back and finish writing 'The Ring' first."

A deathly silence fell over the private room for half a second. Murakami Ryu nearly dropped the cigar he was holding onto his lap: "The Ring?"

At this moment, Murakami Ryu frowned, his tone full of absurdity, and said, "Wasn't that the horror novel you wrote when you first started out? With your current status and position, you're actually going back to writing that kind of...popular horror?"

Kitahara Iwa smiled and said casually, "The outline was finalized back then, but the main story has never been written."

"After all, this is the first line of text that led me into this world. No matter which mountain I climb later, I have to fill this hole myself."

Upon hearing this, Haruki Murakami's originally solemn gaze gradually revealed a hint of sincere admiration.

Having been in this industry for so many years, he has seen far too many writers' true colors after winning major awards.

Some people who won the Akutagawa Prize never touched popular literature again, fearing that even a trace of popular culture would tarnish their reputation.

Some people win the Naoki Prize, then turn around and frantically distance themselves from genre fiction in various interviews, desperately trying to squeeze into the circle of pure literature.

Meanwhile, Kitahara Iwa, standing in front of him, won two awards.

It stands at the highest position in Japanese literature.

Then he said, "I'm going back to writing horror novels."

His debut work was considered unworthy of serious consideration by most literary critics.

This wasn't to prove anything, nor to provoke anything; it was simply because... that was the first door that led him into this world, and he didn't want that door to remain open and unclosed.

"Well said."

Thinking of this, Haruki Murakami raised his glass and exclaimed sincerely, "A writer's debut work is the foundation of his career. If the foundation isn't strong, no matter how tall he grows, he'll sway in the wind."

"Alright, stop with the sentimentality."

Murakami Ryu snorted, but the smile in his eyes was hard to hide.

Then he picked up the wine jug, filled the three people's cups one by one, and then suddenly raised his cup and said, "A toast to this damned literature."

"Respect for Literature".

"Respect for Literature".

The three wine glasses clinked together loudly under the dim light.

"Tokyo Literary Masters: From the Late 1980s" is full of classic quotes, seeking resonance.