Murakami

Excerpt from an interview with Haruki Murakami discussing his recent translation of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

The Yomiuri Shimbun: You have said you’re drawn to Fitzgerald “by fate.” Could you explain this comment?

Murakami: It’s really difficult to explain in words, but it’s easier to understand when you think about it as an encounter between two people rather than an encounter between a person and a novel.

We meet a lot of people in our lives, and there are fateful encounters among them. Such encounters can sometimes change your life completely.

Such encounters can often open up new doors and close others. You sometimes feel your whole being has completely changed from how it was beforehand.

My encounter with The Great Gatsby was of that nature.