256 - to be original
While I was on my trip in Europe, I picked up this book - 'Novelist as a Vocation' by Haruki Murakami (of Norwegian Wood, 1Q84 and Kafka on the Shore) because there's still a nagging child inside of me from when I was 8 shouting 'I still want to be an author! I still want to be a writer!'. Just like buying a lottery ticket, picking this up helped to keep that dream alive for a little longer until the reality set in about how hard it is to write (and finish!) a novel, and how unlikely it is to be a published author...because Murakami himself mentions it >_>
Murakami is very honest in this memoir about him just being a normal dude who was able to write a novel that people liked, and how lucky he had been to win a prestigious award because of it. It's lovely to read the acknowledgement of the role of luck vs. skill in a book like this (which may also just be Japanese modesty), because I just think it's more honest.
In one of his chapters, he talks about originality, and I felt like sharing this passage from the book because I found it a really clear classification and definition of what originality was:
“In my opinion, an artist must fulfill the following three basic requirements to be deemed “original”:
- The artist must possess a clearly unique and individual style (of sound, language, or color). Moreover, that uniqueness should be immediately perceivable on first sight (or hearing).
- That style must have the power to update itself. It should grow with time, never resting in the same place for long, since it expresses an internal and spontaneous process of self-reinvention.
- Over time, that characteristic style should become integrated within the psyche of its audience, to become a part of their basic standard of evaluation. Subsequent generations of artists should see that style as a rich resource from which they can draw.”
I instantly thought of Wes Anderson as a model for this, as well as The Beatles and Van Gogh. Work which, as soon as you listen to the music, or you watch their movies, or you appreciate their art - you get their style. People start describing symmetrical shots, pastel vibrant colours, and tense family dynamics as 'Wes Anderson'-like; The Beatles had their sound with simple catchy melodies, orchestral music, bangin' bass lines and guitar riffs which they then evolved over time across their albums; Van Gogh wasn't necessarily appreciated in his time, but there's a timeless style to his work, and especially with art, you can see that evolve as he picks up new techniques to better express what he wanted on the canvas. They're so ingrained in how we see these pieces of art that we don't even realise the impact they've had over time; so many of the new and exciting things that were done at the time have just become commonplace and part of the culture.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants, hey?
Their styles are things we wish to emulate, and to copy, and we can draw from them as references in our own work, but even Murakami stated that this wasn't always necessary to create something original. He wrote in this book that he didn't know what the literary Japanese landscape looked like at all - he wrote for himself, he used what he knew around him, and took advantage of his unique pathway (translating) to develop distinctive style of writing. These things come from yourself, your skills, your strengths - a strong sense of you.
I reflected on that last bit for myself a lot while I was traveling - thinking about how to take advantage of my own pathway in life and capitalise on that strength as a unique advantage. For a substantial part of my life, I feel like I've been trying to follow all the written and unwritten rules around us, rather than turn all this introspection more honestly towards what I want. Murakami writes that the focus on the self is the way to creativity, rather than trying to work it out as a function of what everyone else is doing:
“Novels well up naturally from within you, not something you can casually, strategically change. You can’t do market research or something and then intentionally rework the content based on the results. If you did, a work born from such a shallow base won’t find many readers.”
This concept seems to crop up in so many different domains of life. I'm thinking about how to apply this concept to the rest of my life, and whether trying to be original is a worthwhile goal or not...or perhaps it's not a goal you work for, but the byproduct of finding yourself and finding the right outlet for that self-expression.
Anyway, I'll let you know if I work anything out that's original :D
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
-
High and Low - by Akira Kurosawa - 4.5 stars - a director at the height of his power doing some fantastic storytelling, beautiful shots, and distinctive style. It tells the story of a shoe executive on the eve of making some big moves at his company suddenly finding out that his son has been kidnapped. From that premise alone you could probably make a pretty good movie, but Kurosawa makes it GREAT. Highly recommended!!
-
ALT Pasta Bar - finally got to go try out this pasta bar, a fusion-ish place that's been around for a while. It was great pasta, but a tad pricey. I had an oxtail papardelle which was more like a fettucine, and my friend had a fettucine that was more like a linguine but that's fine I guess. Still very flavorful and delicious! Recommended :)
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
-
Could you pass this 8th grade test from 1912? - I mean, probably not, because there's a lot of rote learning here, but it was still an interesting thing to read in terms of knowing what people expected 8th graders to know by this time!
-
2048 - it's been 10 years since it first released! The original creator came back and rewrote it - looks like it's attached to Prime Gaming but it's still free to play so get back into that #nostalgia
-
All Possible Plots by Major Authors - satirical, but very funny descriptions of author's plots. Perhaps that makes these original? :D