Desire by Haruki Murakami

Author:Haruki Murakami [Murakami, Haruki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

A Folklore for My Generation:

A Prehistory of Late-Stage Capitalism

I WAS BORN in 1949, entered high school in 1961 and university in 1967. And reached my long-awaited twentieth birthday – my intro into adulthood – during the height of the boisterous slapstick that was the student movement. Which I suppose qualifies me as a typical child of the sixties. So there I was, during the most vulnerable, most immature, and yet most precious period of life, breathing in everything about this live-for-the-moment decade, high on the wildness of it all. There were doors we had to kick in, right in front of us, and you had better believe we kicked them in! With Jim Morrison, the Beatles and Dylan blasting out the soundtrack to our lives.

There was something special about the sixties. That seems true now, in retrospect, but even when I was caught up in the whirlwind of it happening I was convinced of it. But if you asked me to be more specific, to pinpoint what it was about the sixties that was so special, I don’t think I could do more than stammer out some trite reply. We were merely observers, getting totally absorbed in some exciting movie, our palms all sweaty, only to find that, after the house lights came on and we left the theatre, the thrilling afterglow that coursed through us ultimately meant nothing whatsoever. Maybe something prevented us from learning a valuable lesson from all this? I don’t know. I’m far too close to the period to say.

I’m not boasting about the times I lived through. I’m simply trying to convey what it felt like to live through that age, and the fact that there really was something special about it. Yet if I were to try to unpack those times and point out something in particular that was exceptional, I don’t know if I could. What I’d come up with if I did such a dissection would be these: the momentum and energy of the times, the tremendous spark of promise. More than anything else, the feeling of inevitable irritation as when you look through the wrong end of a telescope. Heroism and villainy, ecstasy and disillusionment, martyrdom and betrayal, outlines and specialised studies, silence and eloquence, people marking time in the most boring way – they were all there, for sure. Any age has all these. The present does, and so will the future. But in Our Age (to use an exaggerated term) these were more colourful, and you could actually grasp them. They were literally lined up on a shelf, right before our very eyes.

Nowadays, if you try to grasp the reality of anything, there’s always a whole slew of convoluted extras that come with it: hidden advertising, dubious discount coupons, point cards that stores hand out which you know you should throw away but still hold on to, options that are forced on you before you know what’s happening. Back in Our Age, nobody slapped down indecipherable three-volume owner’s manuals in front of you.

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