"The Pinball Toy in 1973" Haruki Murakami / Translated by Mingzhu Lai Lai Mingzhu In fact, many readers in Taiwan first came into contact with Haruki Murakami's works from "The Lost Pinball Toy" (Note: The new version restores the original title "The 1973 Pinball Toy").The reason is that although Haruki Murakami won the group portrait newcomer award for his debut novel "Listening to the Wind", due to the unique style of the article, I am afraid that Taiwanese readers are not so avant-garde and may not be able to understand the advantages of his article, so he chose to launch the story comparison first. The rich and vivid second novel "Pinball Toys in 1973" was published simultaneously with another collection of short stories "Meet the 100% Girl".Let readers feel the author's unique style and diversity first.And in order to avoid the year number of 1973 being overlooked by some readers who are new and tired of the old, the title of the book is "The Lost Pinball Toy".

Now that everyone is quite familiar with Haruki Murakami, all kinds of concerns seem to be superfluous.This time, taking advantage of the revision opportunity, I happened to restore the original title of the book. After all, it is one of the author's unique styles to like to use numbers and dates. Haruki Murakami once said that he really liked this novel. "Listening to the Wind's Song" was awarded in May, and he continued to write this book after that. During that period, "Song of Listening to the Wind" was nominated for the Akutagawa Award again, but in short, he still concentrated on "Pinball Toys in 1973", starting to write in summer and finishing in autumn.

"Pinball Toys in 1973" was also nominated for the Akutagawa Award. Many people called him and said he was a strong candidate. The people around him couldn't calm down. On the day of the judging, he wanted to play mahjong, so he went to the Sumitomo Building in Shinjuku Play mahjong with people from Kodansha. He said that it doesn't matter if you don't get an award, but it's easier to not get an award.Later, when the novel sold well, it can be said that it was sold not by the power of winning the prize, but by my own strength, so I can have such confidence in myself.

Interestingly, according toMagazine No. 170, that is, December 7, 1988, reported that Mr. Hidemi Eri, a literary critic, said: Recently, many people have gradually lost confidence in the winning works of the Akutagawa Prize, and the tendency of the works is similar to Haruki Murakami's Natsuki Ikezawa and Natsuki Ikezawa. Arai Man won the Akutagawa Award, perhaps because the judges paid for the failure of Haruki Murakami to win the Akutagawa Award. Today, Haruki Murakami is undoubtedly one of the top Japanese writers.Many people in Japan say that his works are very American. Indeed, he has been close to American novels since high school. His favorite writers include Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut, Paul Theroux, Richard Brautigan, Gay Talese , Raymond Carver, Tim 0`bieen, Stephen King, John Irving, etc. These writers can be said to be the source of nourishment for Haruki Murakami's literature.Especially Fitzgerald, Haruki Murakami said that for several years, only Fitzgerald was his teacher, his university, and his literary partner.

He said that after reading "Tender Night", I began to read every work of Fitzgerald.Re-read "Biography of the Tycoon", read "This End of Paradise", and his short story collections. Among them, "Winter Dream" and "Babylon Revisited" I think I have read each of them about twenty times.I broke down the two short stories into parts and looked at the article like a microscope, wondering what it was that fascinated me.Faced with his articles, I never thought that one day I would write articles myself.Just like a primary school student dismantling an alarm clock, he wants to find out the secret and unknowable magic power hidden in the novel.

If someone asks me, does Fitzgerald have any influence on me when I write novels?The answer is both YES and NO.In terms of style, theme, novel construction and storytelling, I think his influence is almost non-existent.If he had anything for me, it was something bigger and vaguer.Perhaps it can be said that it is the attitude that people should take towards novels (whether they are written or read).There is also the realization that novels are, after all, life itself. One of the charms of Fitzgerald's novels is that all kinds of opposite emotions come together in a crowded place, tenderness and arrogance, delicate sentimentality and cynicism, utter optimism and desire for self-sabotage, rising will and falling feeling, all will come together. Sophistication and Midwestern simplicity

In fact, his interest in the West was not limited to the United States. During the three years from the age of thirty-seven to forty, he lived in Europe. In October 1986, he left Japan, where he was busy and disturbed. The station arrived in Rome, then Greece, and London, during which he completed his fifth and sixth novels, "Norwegian Wood" and "Dance, Dance, Dance".Three years later, he returned to Japan. Unexpectedly, his novel became an unprecedented best-seller and he became a big celebrity, which made him feel awkward and unable to stay any longer.So soon he left Japan for Princeton in the United States.Started the second long stay abroad.

Just like in "Slow Boat to China", the Chinese girl said that this is almost not the place for me to stay.In "The Pinball Toy in 1973", the mouse wanted to tell Jie that I was leaving this place, and he said it several times before he said it.In "The End of the World and Grim Foreign Land", the idea of ​​leaving from one world and going to another world is always brewing, fearing that there is no exit, looking for an exit, and wanting to leave seems to be a common phenomenon in Haruki Murakami's works. In the article, we can also see a contrastive writing method that wanders between reality and non-reality. "Pinball Toys in 1973" can be said to be a sequel to "Listening to the Wind Song". In Tokyo, the mouse dropped out of university and stayed in his hometown. The mouse part was written in a more realistic way, while my part was written in a more fictional way.This kind of dual-structure representation of two protagonists and two locations in two lines can also be seen in "The End of the World and Brutal Foreign Land", and the division is more obvious.In fact, his realistic descriptions have his unique vision. Even ordinary things in daily life, after he writes, seem to become pictures captured by a photographer or a scene in a movie. of.The fictional part has the same effect as surreal paintings, science fiction, and supernatural movies.No wonder many friends who are engaged in photography, design, advertising and literary circles like his works.

In addition, there are two great features in "The Pinball Toy in 1973". One is to put the act of looking for things at the center. Of course, this refers to looking for the pinball toy machine.The other is communication with inanimate things, communication between this world and that world.Haruki Murakami made these two attempts unintentionally. In fact, the author did not set the ending in advance, but let it develop as if it were a matter of course. For example, the frozen warehouse that appeared at the end was when I didn’t know where to go, and I was writing about where to go in the end. , I thought it would be better to have a colder place, or a spacious and spacious warehouse.So the image naturally came up.

From this work, we may be able to feel how the relationship between people and the relationship between people and things has changed after the frequent exchanges of modern Eastern and Western cultures, and after the rapid changes such as industrialization, commercialization, and urbanization. , and what the feeling of life has become.