Murakami Haruki, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Excerpt While Reading) 1

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve gradually come to the realization that this kind of pain and hurt is a necessary part of life. If you think about it, it’s precisely because people are different from others that you’re able to create their own independent selves. Take me as an example. It’s precisely my ability to detect some aspects of a scene that other people can’t, to feel differently than others and choose words that differ from theirs, that’s allowed me to write stories that are mine alone. And because of this we have the extraordinary situation in which quite a few people read what I’ve written. So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent. 

That’s what I basically believe, and I’ve lived my life accordingly. In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person’s heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside. I think in my own way I’m aware of this danger—probably through experience—and that’s why I’ve had to constantly keep my body in motion, in some areas pushing myself to the limit, in order to heal the loneliness I feel inside and to put it in perspective. Not so much as an intentional act, but as an instinctive reaction.

Let me be more specific. 

When I’m criticized unjustly (from my viewpoint, at least), or when someone I’m sure will understand me doesn’t, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer it’s like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent. It also makes me realize again how weak I am, how limited my abilities are. I become aware, physically, of these low points. And one of the results of running a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger. If I’m angry, I direct that anger toward myself. If I have a frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself. That’s the way I’ve always lived. I quietly absorb the things I’m able to, releasing them later, and in as changed a form as possible, as part of the story line in a novel. 

 

*Grammar Points

As의 용법: -함에 따라(접속사), -로서(전치사)

관계대명사 what, 주격관계대명사 that

전치사 + 관계대명사 in which

to부정사의 형용사적 용법, 부사적 용법, in order toV

동사 병렬 구조, 수일치

5형식, 사역동사와 목적격보어 자리에 동사 원형

수동태

수일치: 주어와 동사 거리가 먼 경우

현재분사가 형용사로서 명사 수식-frustrating

동사로 쓰인 exhaust: 과거분사로 감정을 나타낼 때 설명할 예문

비교급을 강조하는 부사, much.

 

*Expressions

quite a few

That's why

more or less

No so much as

By ing

 

 

I’m not trying to brag or anything—who in the world would brag about something like this?—but I’m not the brightest person. I’m the kind of person who has to experience something physically, actually touch something, before I have a clear sense of it. No matter what it is, unless I see it with my own eyes I’m not convinced. I’m a physical, not intellectual, type of person. Of course I have a certain amount of intelligence—at least I think I do. If I totally lacked that there’d be no way I could write novels. But I’m not the type who operates through pure theory or logic, not the type whose energy source is intellectual speculation. Only when I’m given an actual physical burden and my muscles start to groan (and something scream) does my comprehension meter shoot upward and I’m finally able to grasp something. Needless to say, it takes quite a bit of time, plus effort, to go through each stage, step by step, and arrive at a conclusion. Sometimes it takes too long, and by the time I’m convinced, it’s already too late. But what’re you going to do? That’s the kind of person I am. 

 

*Grammar Points

관계대명사 who, whose

No matter what 양보절

Unless

Needless to say 말할 필요도 없이

by the time S + V 

 

I had all kinds of painful experiences, things I had to rack my brains about, and plenty of disappointments. (가게를 운영하던 일에 관해)

 

Things were settling down. Up till then, it had been a question of survival, of keeping my head above water, and I didn’t have room to think of anything else. I’d reached the top of some steep staircase and come out to a fairly open place and was confident that because I’d reached it safely, I could handle any future problems that might crop up and I’d survive. 상황은 안정되어갔다. 그때까지는 생존의 문제였고, 다른 생각할 여유가 없었다. 가파른 계단 위에 도착하고, 마침내 탁 트인 장소로 나왔고, 안전하게 그곳에 도착했기 때문에 자신감 있었다는 말이. 나도 이런 건전한 자부심을 가지고 싶다고 생각하게 된다. 

 

*room이 불가산 명사로 쓰이는 경우

 

 

I took a deep breath, slowly gazed around me, glanced back at the steps I’d taken here, and began to contemplate the next stage. 가게가 한 숨 돌릴만하게 된 뒤, 다음 단계를 생각하면서 나아간 것이 하루키에게는 소설 쓰기 였구나 싶다. 

 

I was more interested in having finished it than in whether or not it would ever see the light of day. 

 

It was a particularly gorgeous autumn, with wonderful sunny weather. (…) This was the last fall of my twenties. 

 

두 명 몫을 살다 I felt like I was living enough for two people’s lives.

 

I’m the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do. I just couldn’t do something clever like writing a novel while someone else ran the business. I had to give it everything I had. If I failed, I could accept that. But I knew that if I did things half-heartedly and they didn’t work out, I’d always have regrets. 

 

This was in 1981 and we still had a considerable amount of debt, but I figured I’d just do my best and see what happened. 

 

I figured it was do or die, so I’d put everything I had into it. 

-       Do or die: doggedly determined to reach one’s objective.