We are revisiting an article by Alvaro Cortina, where he dissects the acclaimed work of Haruki Murakami, the author of Norwegian Wood, about running. "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running," a must-read for any serious runner.

Haruki Murakami insists that writing is a "physical task." He says: "we think with our whole body." This is the foundation of ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ (Tusquets).

Writing Becomes a Sport

One does not write only with one's fingers, but with "the body," just as (for instance) one plays chess (another internal sport). Here, sweat becomes spiritual, psychological, cultured, a stylistic temperature.

Authors are bodies. Although Murakami doesn't say he sweats when he writes, he comes very close to saying that when he runs, he's making novels. Haruki Murakami on the trails, in the fractions of the stopwatch, in air-cushioned shoes, listening to Bryan Adams on his minidisc. "I am a person with more physical structure than intelligence," "Writing a novel requires me to waste a lot of physical strength."

"In my case, most of what I know about writing I've learned by running on the street every morning," and so on. The previous thesis is insisted upon again and again. To infinity. Writing, running. Umbral used to say that writing is exercising the eye and the wrist. The author of 'Norwegian Wood' talks about the literary as a toxin that is fought with the body.

The body, organic drafting. "I am one of those who, by subjecting their own body to real loads and making their muscles complain (sometimes with loud shouts), manage to truly raise the needle on their understanding gauge until, finally, they are satisfied." Murakami speaks of his loneliness as a long-distance runner.

He applies personification to his own organs, which cry out: "When was the last time I seriously thought about my knees? As I asked myself this question, I felt I owed both of them an apology." Another: "My muscles are as stubborn as I am." Sometimes his body becomes an artifice, a mechanism, and he identifies with it seamlessly, without splitting. Sometimes, he is his body (knees included).

"I am not human. I am a pure machine. And, as such, I don't have to feel anything. I simply move forward."

Other times, his diary monologues get a little muddled: "But our body, like our consciousness, is a labyrinth." Murakami, audaciously, goes so far as to speak of his physique as if he were speaking of the whole world: "I concentrate on my body so that no sound, no scene, escapes me, and so that I don't lose my way." One might recall the mysterious Spinoza: "we do not yet know what a body can do."

Dualism also breaks down when physical exercise ends up being spiritual exercise: "Of all the things that the ultramarathon experience brought me, the most significant was not physical, but spiritual."

To take a dive with a twist: "The act of running was already in a realm that bordered on the metaphysical. First there was the act of running, and then, as something inherent to it, my existence. I run, therefore I am."

The author of 'Norwegian Wood'. Running, and cycling, and swimming, sport, are everything. Life is like a bull, as the bullfighter used to say.

Murakami, the all-around athlete, presents the reader with images of a well-worn allegorical tradition, where "writing a novel is facing steep mountains." That is, one might say, here writing is more climbing than running.

But Murakami wants his epitaph to read "writer (and runner)." He doesn't talk about climbing: "No matter what they tell me, it's in my nature. Like a scorpion to sting or cicadas to cling to trees. Like a salmon to return to the river where it was born or pairs of ducks to seek each other out."

Running, Living, Writing

In these aforementioned sentences, insurmountable contradictions can be observed. But it doesn't matter; here, the emphasis is placed on the festive atmosphere of identification (running, writing, and living… and swimming, and cycling… and climbing).

For once, the three variables of all these equations are given in the same sentence: "Consuming oneself, with a certain efficiency and within the limitations imposed on each of us, is the essence of running and, at the same time, a metaphor for living (and, for me, also for writing)."

The book is dedicated to his "triathlete friends," his triathlon friends, and to running friends in particular. And to runners (also to writers? and climbers?) in general. The book talks about splitting, about mechanism, about organicism, about "I run, therefore I exist," about how Murakami lost weight, about how he improved his goals on the Olympic course of his segments, and in the final crafting of his novels.

These 230 pages pass with a relentless inertia, and when he finally says to his "triathlete friends" and other runners: "If it weren't for you, I certainly wouldn't have been able to keep running until now."

His book, 230 pages, we know what the organic writer talks about when he talks about running. A very happy marathoner with his discovery.

· You might be interested in: Run for Free in the Behobia-San Sebastián Race 2021 – Be Urban Running Blog

· You might be interested in: Boost Your Running Performance with Cross Training – Be Urban Running Blog