Literature Haruki Murakami and Andrzej Stasiuk in direct comparison
Reading books by writers on how to become a writer instead of writing yourself is a metastatic procrastination. To make the distraction of your own creative work even more distracting, I have two authors in the ring rise and compete against each other: the bestselling author Haruki Murakami with his By profession writer and the "attempt of an intellectual autobiography" by the Polish author Andrzej Stasiuk, How I became a writer.
Purely organizational Murakami presents very professional. Beautifully structured in eleven chapters, whose headlines "How I became a writer" or "How do I write an extensive novel" raise the hope for valuable or at least motivating insider tips. The book by Stasiuk, on the other hand, is a visually deterring lead desert. He just knows point and comma, but the word-breaker on his typewriter was apparently broken. 134 pages in a block sentence. No chapters, no paragraphs, that's an imposition.
So I start with Murakami.
For someone who wants to become a writer, it is extremely important to read a lot first. I'm sorry if that sounds banal, but in my opinion reading is the most important exercise for a budding writer, whom he should by no means neglect. In order to write a novel, one must know as an unconditional basic requirement how such a structure is structured. This is just as natural as the fact that in order to make an omelet, you first have to open the eggs.
Yes, that sounds really banal. Even to me it is noticeable that this could be formulated more easily and less cumbersome. The crooked omelette comparison does not inspire confidence or enthusiasm.
What does Stasiuk say?
To ventilate me, I went to the mountains. I thought, I work a bit physically like a real man. I took the role models from the trash literature, because those from the better literature were extremely complicated and in the so-called everyday life absolutely impossible to realize. In the mountains you could work in the LPG or in the forest. I chose the forest, which in romantic mythology was a bit higher than the Agricultural Production Cooperative. The forester was sympathetic. He actually drank with everyone and almost never left the forester's lodge. You could say he was the spiritual patron. He never checked how much someone had done. He believed one word and wrote it down in the papers. I lived in such a shack, and basically it was fine. In the rain, I did not go to work, and nobody started one. At that time it was raining a lot. Not like today. In the first month, it was raining continuously. I got a reward that my knees became soft. The others too. They were good buddies, but they always changed after paying wages, and I moved out of the barracks for a few days. When they ran out of coal, I came back. That went pretty fast. I had taken Kierkegaard with me to read. Fear and trembling. A good title. Especially around the payday. One day I did not find Kierkegaard anymore. The envelope was in the shithouse. I was too young to understand the metaphorical meaning of this fact. In general, at that time I was rather weak in the transmitted interpretation of reality.
That's a completely different beat, right? In the meantime, the only paragraph that runs through the entire book makes sense, because I do not want to take a break at Stasiuk's. At Murakami, on the other hand, I quickly realize that I'm just double-clicking, turning over a few pages at once or jumping to the next chapter.
Stasiuk does exactly what Murakami recommends:
Next, probably before the actual writing, it is important to practice attentively and thoroughly observing people, things, and events, all around them, no matter what they are. And let it go through his head.
And so on, and so on, Murakami also implements this idea in multiple repetitions, as if he were talking to a goofy head.
At Stasiuk, observing (here in the case of a friend inclined to a Buddhist guru) goes like this:
Krosbi became a disciple of Guru Maharaji. He annoyed endlessly with it. He made an altar and made bowings, squats, and push-ups in front of it. I did not mind until he showed me a photo of his spiritual master, so I got out. A master, as I imagined him, should be thin, should have something of an ascetic, but this one was fat as a trafficker, in orange nightgown. And grinned like a blast of joy. No. That was too much for me. I was educated in Christian saints, in Alexy, in Simon the Saints, the likeness of this pacifier guru did not tear me.
Murakami, meanwhile, annoys him with his seventh assertion that it really, really, really -
You just have to believe me!
- do not mind at all having never won the Akutagawa Literary Prize. I do not believe him for a second. Stasiuk I believe everything. The stoned and drunk attempted suicide attempt -
My colleague Maciek came up with the idea that suicide would be a good way out. I Agreed. I should commit him in Miedzylesie. There, a friendly nurse finds me and immediately notifies the ambulance, who takes me to the hospital, where I am declared as a suicide for incompetent and housed in psychiatry, everything else in the hands of God. The plan was as good as any other. Maciek claimed it was like a bank, I would even get a medal, maybe even a war pension. I said, "Okay, I'll do it."
- from Poland is more credible and authentic than the disciplined marathon runner from Japan. Incidentally, the plan to let the nurse find himself bleeding and lying in the snow pile did not quite work out. The deserter Stasiuk was imprisoned for one and a half years.
The difference between the two authors quickly becomes clear: Stasiuk can write because he can tell. And he can tell because he has experienced something.
In any case, I was enthusiastic about a hitherto unknown author and disappointed with the world-famous author. Just today, run into the library to get me more works by Stasiuk. Murakami, on the other hand, can write whatever he wants, I can not read a book about the old bored guy.