"What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir" by Haruki Murakami (Knopf, $21)
Haruki Murakami's new book on running isn't meant as a training guide; instead, he weaves a memoir of sorts from the lessons he's learned on running paths and through his work as Japan's premier novelist.
Yet "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir" is not a memoir in the traditional sense. The author of "Kafka on the Shore" and "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" takes us on an alternate route through his life. He takes us on his journey as a runner.
The book opens in Kauai, Hawaii, as Murakami trains for the New York Marathon. From there, he flashes back to his earliest running days, when he sold his Tokyo jazz bar to become a full-time writer. Running helped him stay in shape in a sedentary occupation. Throughout this story, the writer-runner continuously emerges, as Murakami takes portions of his training log, the only diary he says he's faithfully kept, and converts the entries to the prose of a seasoned novelist —- and a seasoned runner.
Murakami's prose allows us to run alongside him, tasting our own sweaty, salty lips, as the writer travels a commuter highway to Marathon, Greece, with the sun beating down. He longs for the cold beer that awaits him at the end of his run, only to discover that "nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness."
While the book will catch the eye of runners, experienced and novice alike, nonrunners can walk away with lessons Murakami has garnered both on the trail and at his writing desk.
He speaks of the traits a novelist needs to be successful: talent, endurance and focus.
Anyone who knows perseverance can appreciate this work. Murakami writes about the 62-mile ultramarathon in which he had to persuade his muscles to keep going "like Danton and Robespierre eloquently attempting to persuade the dissatisfied and rebellious Revolutionary Tribunal."
The book takes an unsatisfying triathlon detour near the end, but it remains exquisitely written and full of great running aphorisms. Murakami's nod to Raymond Carver's "What We Talk When We Talk About Love" serves as his own beautiful love story with running, sharing highs and lows, triumph and exhaustion.
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