Sometimes I meet a person who says " Ive had so many interesting experiences that I can write lots of books about them." I think Ive heard quite a few people say the same thing especially since I came here. This doesnt mean that Americans say such a thing, but that many Japanese living in America often do. What they say might be probably true, because its quite challenging to live away from their home country, and they must have encountered various kinds of exciting happenings in this country. Its quite natural that they should have a strong wish to tell their story to someone else.
Of course, I dont know if they are really going to write their own novels someday. But I can only say this after all; despite the background as a writer who has written quite a number of novels so far, Ive almost never had any "truly exciting" incidents in my private life. No doubt I might have had something exciting as a person living more than 40 years, such as meeting a strange and mysterious person or being greatly shocked by a sudden change of destiny. Some memory, I cant tell you what it is though, makes me smile and some still makes me so sore. Thrilling things once quivered me with excitement. Nevertheless I guess you must also have gone through such things as I have experienced in my life. Ive never met anyone who can be said to have experienced "such an unbelievable happening as no one ever had even in this large world." If I were quite a stranger to writing novels and asked if I can declare to people that "Ive got so much stock of interesting topics for my writing, " then my answer to this question will be "No." Definitely "No." What I could do is just confess honestly that "My life was somewhat interesting in its way, but not interesting enough to write a novel about it."
For all this, in a very rare occasion we stumble upon people who encountered incredible experiences in this world. I like their story telling since a boy, and I often ask them to tell their own episode. I have no idea of using their story as a subject for my novel, but I just feel like listening to them. Various tales exist; some of them are stunning, moving, heartily laughable, and chilling me with fear. Their narrative is sometimes so enchanting as to make me forget to go to bed. It is true that "Fact is stranger than fiction. " But it is not always true that the person, who has gone through such an excitement, can write a novel as stimulating as his experience. There might be a writer like Jack London (an American novelist 1878-1916) who makes up extraordinarily interesting books from his plentiful, extraordinary experiences, but judging from my knowledge, such a novelist is rather exceptional.
Though this is my private opinion, people are inclined to be captured by the keen sense of helplessness while actually writing them down once they suffer overwhelming experiences. Painful is the stress when one cannot reproduce or convey vividly to others, however hard he tries, what hes experienced so intensely. In my case, the stronger is the intention to "write about a particular subject in a particular way," the harder it becomes to start writing and to express myself. This stress somewhat resembles the irritation one feels when he cannot describe to another person what he experienced so vividly and realistically in his dreams. All words I use to narrate my feeling of the moment fail incessantly to describe what I wish to, and then they begin to betray me.
To the contrary, there are some people, despite their lack of experiences, who can find out something funny and something pitiful in a trivial incident from their unique viewpoint which is quite different from that of others. They can recreate their findings into a different form and tell other people more comprehensibly about them. These people are standing much closer to novelists.
Anyway I have no experience in my life which is really worth telling you about. I can understand why John Irving said something to the effect that "If I write my books based on my personal experiences, my readers will probably fall asleep after the first 20 pages." In my case, less than 20 pages. It is generally believed that writers create their works under the influence of various real experiences, though. For instance, when I published my first novel, my acquaintances around me suddenly started to become restless and nervous. They began to keep a distance from me though we had been enjoying a casual relationship until that time. At first I couldnt make out why, but after talking to them, I noticed they gave the cold shoulder to me for fear that I might use them as the models for my next book. Weve been getting along with one another since they found that I had no intention to write such kind of novels.
Since I came to the States, Ive visited lots of universities and talked with many American students. Ive talked publicly before a large audience, too. But I feel more comfortable when speaking face to face in a small class, using my own words and following my own casual style. Sometimes after class, all of us went to a pub and enjoyed an open and frank conversation over a glass of beer. In such an atmosphere, there is no difference between American and Japanese students. Students, who assumed an affected attitude in the presence of a teacher during the session, now get relaxed and recover the childish sparkle in their eyes.
They are usually the students interested in Japanese Literature or Japanese, but for many of them, this is the first time in their life to meet a novelist. Therefore they are very eager to know something very realistic about a novelist, for instance, what kind of creature a writer is, what kind of ideas he has, and what kind of life he is living. Some of them wish to write a novel themselves, too. These novelist-oriented students are keenly interested to know how they can start writing a novel or become a novelist. Most typical questions asked by them are as follows:
1. What did you want to write in your university days?
2. How did you publish your first novel?
3. What do you think is the most essential for writing novels?
From my standpoint as a private writer, I find it almost impossible to expand my case into the level of all writers and to teach them that "Novelists are such-and-such people" or "This is the way to write a novel" or "You can become a writer in this way." I also find it meaningless to suggest to them knowingly some "correct" theory of becoming a novelist. So I show them my concrete example, saying that "In my case I am like this." Besides, they much prefer the quick, descriptively "colorful" start-up example to the logical, abstract theory or concept.
In this "concrete and colorful" way, wherever I went, I explained to the students how I became a novelist, and I happened to notice that it was nearly good luck itself that made me a writer. Sometimes I am deeply impressed by the fact that I could become a writer.
When a student, I was certainly thinking of writing something. More specifically, I wanted to write film scenarios. Scenarios first, and then novels, for I felt interested in films. That is why I chose to enter the Film & Drama Course in Waseda University, but I gave up writing scenarios halfway, thinking it didnt fit me. I didnt have the slightest idea of what to write or how to write in those days. Neither any material nor any theme did I have to write about. Such a person could never start writing a script ( or anything else), which was a self-evident fact. But I liked to read film scripts anyway, so I went to the Drama Museum on campus almost everyday, if not attending classes, and devoured all the film scripts in the West and in the East through all ages. Looking back on my student days now, I think this devouring helped me so much. Therefore, I think I can give a piece of advice to younger people, having a wish to write something, that "you need not force yourself to write something when you can not." I wonder if this might help them or not though.
Then I graduated from Waseda, got married, and started working. (No, it is opposite. I married, started working, and then graduated from university.) Driven by the severe everyday life, I totally forgot my wish to write something. To clear off my debts, I had to work from early in the morning till late at night like "a whipped carriage-horse," which sounds like a non-literary clich?, though. I continued it for seven years. As my bar served the "stuffed cabbage" , for instance, I had to cut a full bag of onions into tiny pieces every morning. Still now I can manage to cut plenty of onions in a short time even without shedding tears. My hands automatically and swiftly move as if they knew how to do it.
"Do you know the knack of slicing onions without tears?" I ask my students sometimes.
"No," they say.
"Finish cutting them before tears start dropping." A big laughter occurs.
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