![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1016Alive-610x407.jpg\")
The second Authors Alive! ~Meet the Author~ event took place on October 16, 2021 at the Waseda International House of Literature (Haruki Murakami Library). Haruki Murakami was joined this time by guitarist Kaori Muraji, who not only provided music to compliment Murakami\u2019s readings but also performed some songs on her own. Alongside a question-and-answer session, the event was an amazing experience that I wish never ended.<\/p>\n
The audience gathered and sat around the iconic bookshelf stairway area of the Waseda International House of Literature, which opened on October 1, to listen to Murakami\u2019s recital and Muraji\u2019s performances. This space, surrounded by a ceiling of wooden arches and shelves lined with books left and right, made for a warm and tender atmosphere to compliment Murakami\u2019s voice and the timbre of Muraji\u2019s guitar.<\/p>\n
Murakami would routinely make eye contact with the audience, reading in a way as if he were speaking both to and with us. It was like being in a dream, becoming immersed in these stories in this space where words and music became one. It was my first time enjoying a reading accompanied by music at the same time, and it drew me into the stories\u2019 worlds to the point where I couldn\u2019t imagine the words without the music, nor the music without the words. I was able to enjoy both literature and music, just as one can do in the audio room of the Murakami Library.<\/p>\n
There is a scene in The Strange Library<\/em> where the protagonist, trapped in the library by the Old Man, is brought donuts and lemonade. During a break after the first half of the event, I got some coffee, donuts, and granola from the Orange Cat cafe located within the library. I realized afterwards that I had been eating my own donut in my own \u201cstrange library\u201d as if I had entered the story myself, and wondered if I too was really able to escape.<\/p>\n Now was the time for Muraji\u2019s solo performance. She performed three songs, including a rendition of Ryuichi Sakamoto\u2019s \u201cMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.\u201d During Murakami\u2019s reading of The Strange Library<\/em>, Muraji conveyed the story\u2019s setting through gently strumming her guitar\u2019s strings as softly as possible, but each of her three solo performances filled the building with sound as if it was pouring in from all around, and I found myself overwhelmed by the music.<\/p>\n When introducing the novel and its summary, Murakami touched on the movie Drive My Car, a film adaptation of Murakami\u2019s short story under the same title. He stated that when he went to see the movie, \u201cI couldn\u2019t find the line between what I had written and what was added in for the sake of the film.\u201d Muraji sympathized with this sentiment, mentioning how sometimes composers will hear a song and think what a lovely tune, only to find out it was their own composition. I found this dialogue interesting, and realized that people who create something don\u2019t just stop at one creation, but are continuously producing new work daily.<\/p>\n The event closed with Muraji\u2019s final performance, a rendition of Johann Sebastian Bach\u2019s hymn \u201cJesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.\u201d<\/p>\n In the club I belong to at Waseda University, I have the opportunity to read aloud novels, essays, children\u2019s stories, and poems with my club members. In these moments where I read aloud works I\u2019m interested in and discuss them with my fellow club members, I feel calm and the time just flies by. However, there are not many people who enjoy literature or read books through reading the work aloud and discussing the content together with others in everyday life.<\/p>\n I want the Waseda International House of Literature to become a space where one can engage with literature together with different people and discuss freely with each other, just like this Author\u2019s Alive event. Instead of quietly reading alone, I think it\u2019s important to learn and make discoveries by engaging with these stories with friends or people we meet, especially when this kind of interaction has become less common due to Covid-19. I was reminded that the experience of sharing your thoughts with another person over literature and sharing experiences in the same space, is something precious and not replicable online through a screen.<\/p>\n Though the attendees for this Author\u2019s Alive event were limited to a small number of Waseda University students and the general public, I hope the Waseda International House of Literature will grow into a space where many people can come together to learn and converse with each other.<\/p>\n *Solo performances:<\/p>\n *Musical Accompaniments:<\/p>\n Authors Alive! ~Meet the Author~ Session Two: Haruki Murakami and Kaori Muraji The following event report was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[82],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-events-en","ja"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1413,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions\/1413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1016Murakami-610x407.jpg\")
For Murakami\u2019s first reading, he chose his own work, The Strange Library<\/em>. Murakami read for longer than originally planned, and Muraji improvised by starting her performance midway through Murakami\u2019s reading. The music blended with the story and afterwards, when talking to other attendees of the event, some commented they were surprised the music during the reading was an improvisation.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/wihl-annex\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1016Muraji-610x406.jpg\")
Murakami\u2019s second reading was from his novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage<\/em>. Muraji chose to play an assortment from Franz Liszt\u2019s \u201cYears of Pilgrimage,\u201d linking it with the wording in the novel\u2019s title.<\/p>\nWorks read by Haruki Murakami<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n
Songs\/pieces performed by Kaori Muraji<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n
\n
\n\u30fbFirst Year: Switzerland \u2013 Homesickness, The Bells of Geneva: Nocturne
\n\u30fbSecond Year: Italy \u2013 Marriage of the Virgin, Three sonnets of Petrarch (47, 104)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"