WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING: BOOK REVIEW

Every month I have a handful of terrible runs — the kind where my legs feel detached from my body and my brain powerfully persuades me that if I go an extra block I will not find strength and resilience, but rather a horrible and painful death (jeez stop being so dramatic!). It is during these awful runs that I think about author Haruki Murakami’s 2007 memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Particularly, I am reminded of a line where he says, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.”

I am not a runner. My body, my height, and my natural stamina were not made for me to run far or run fast. I think my fastest mile time in high school hovers around 8 minutes. But, besides writing, I don’t think there’s any other activity I get such an immense gratification from upon finishing than running. Because running is such an obviously mental game — most sports are. But the individualistic quality of running — of knowing that the only reason why you’ve crossed the finish line is because you convinced yourself that you could, is incomparable. There’s an addictive laser-sharp meditative state I find myself in after a really good run, and for a few moments, I swear that there’s no need to give into any vice ever again. That’s how intense it feels.  

Unlike me, Murakami is a serious runner. He says that he began running when he was 33 out of necessity. At the time, he recently sold his jazz bar to become a full-time writer and needed to maintain a somewhat healthy lifestyle after having to sit at a desk for most of the day. That’s also one of my favorite things about Murakami — that he owned a snazzy jazz bar. Despite beginning his running journey in his early 30’s, by 1996 (14 years later), Murakami had not only competed in dozens of races, but also finished an ultramarathon of 62 miles. In his memoir, Murakami reflects upon his relationship with running, as well as the influence the practice has on his writing. Although What I Talk About When I Talk About Running does not have the fantastical, surreal elements that most of his fiction books do, Murakami’s real-life stories reflecting his unwavering patience and endurance, are equally as mesmerizing. Murakami’s 2002 novel Kafka on the Shore has also always been one of my favorite books of all time. So naturally, his memoir about running was the ultimate crossover episode I was looking for.

It did not surprise me that Murakami is a serious, long-distance runner, because when I think about his writing, whether it’s Norwegian Wood or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the first word that comes to mind is meditative. There’s an indisputable peaceful and natural cadence to Murakami’s style, and I think its smoothness can be attributed to the same quality of mind that runners achieve after practicing repetitively over time. Murakami himself proves this point. In drawing a link between writing and running, he says that “most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.” Much like running, writing requires talent, focus, and endurance. The sport is not meant for those who crave, or even expect, instant gratification. Like running, the gratification from writing doesn’t come from producing a piece of work that stems from hours of capitalistic gruel, but rather being satisfied with the knowledge that you finished the race by and for yourself. You conquered all the hills that you could not see the other side of and saw pretty trees along the way — and Murakami recognizes this labor in both his running and writing.

Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is not a toolkit for running, nor is it an autobiography about the author’s life. It serves more like a self-reflective diary, in which Murakami tries to link important pieces of his own life together in order to better understand them and himself. In doing so, the reader gains insight into what it’s like being obsessed with something that seems counterintuitive. Who wants to be addicted to an activity that is drudgingly long, grueling, and not instantaneously satisfying? That’s the opposite of what drugs are supposed to be. And yet, as Murakami alludes, its inexplicability, whether its running or writing, is part of its preciousness. Even after all this time, the best that him and other addicts can say is something along the lines of, “All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.”