What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a novel cum memoir of acclaimed Japanese contemporary writer Haruki Murakami in which he poured words and words about the beginning of his career as a novelist and his very true heart for running. 

Murakami described his experiences, agonies, and point of view about life in general while taking in and letting the sceneries and views pass him by. 

And as a review of this story, it is easier if I will be in the shoes of this writer as he ran a 62- mile marathon and finished it in ten hour or so. I tried to catch-up with him, focusing all of my energy and what has been left of my writing skills and ability as I pretty much made it in an unimaginative less than three hours. 

You would have thought that I won over him. No, I did not win over him. He won me over just like the way it used to be.  

Points to Ponder: Words by Haruki Murakami 

• Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

• When running, you don't have to talk or listen to anybody.
• The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned in school.
• Clouds are always taciturn. I probably shouldn't be looking up at them. What I should be looking at is inside of me. Like staring down into a deep well. 
• Life is basically unfair.
• I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone.
• 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.
•  Nobody's going to win all the time. On the highway of life you can't always be in the fast lane.

"Now, there is no wonder on my likeness for his novels for I understand him the way he might understand me. We are of the same person as shadows forming part of shadows on leaked light literary lines of wall and never ending slippery slopes.” – AC