A Wild Sheep Chase: In Search Of Haruki Murakami

Alan Yentob explores the mysterious, offbeat, sexually charged world of Japan's most popular and internationally acclaimed writer.

Haruki Murakami is incomparable, a literary novelist tipped for the Nobel Prize, who writes cool, witty, and often surreal bestsellers. Notoriously enigmatic and media-shy Murakami has always shunned radio and television. However, he agreed to a rare and frank off-camera interview with the producer for this programme.

In this impressionistic film, Alan Yentob travels in Japan through the strange, labyrinthine landscape of Murakami's fiction on a jazz-fuelled 'wild sheep chase' of a journey. In Tokyo and Kobe he delves into the social and political background of Murakami's work and encounters his fans, critics, translators and a talking cat.

A Wild Sheep Chase: In Search Of Haruki Murakami, BBC One, 24th June 2008, 10.45pm.

So, I guess you just missed that then.

I wish I could write like Murakami. The ability to charge aimless everyday scenes with profoundly moving and imaginative surreality seems so appealing to me. If I could do that, I might need less robots and cowboys. Except, I like robots and cowboys.

It is too late for my confused and diluted sentiments to find coherence, but you should know that whatever those sentiments are, they're, well, very much whatever they are.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Colour me Vista. I'm back.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Really tired. Kind of in a bad mood. Still waiting for my cold to trail off completely.

My computer is experiencing a reluctance to function. On the plus side, I may have to get a new PC. On the downside, I may have to get Windows Vista.

Sometimes, my cat sticks out his tongue.

I'm worried that I'm getting out of practice since I last wrote something, so I'm going to try and write a pulpy little serial. Just a thousand words a week, each instalment ending in a cliff hanger. Have some characters in mind, but not really sure what I'm going to write about.

Certainly not going to be any good.

Not currently well enough to sit in front of the computer for more than five minutes, but I think I'm on the up after a couple of days of illness.

Strange how we're only reminded that the human body is an ecosystem in itself when some of the inhabitants try to usurp the landlord.

I might have something interesting to do or say right now, if I didn't have a headache from this oppressive heat. I saw a cloud yesterday. It looked frightened and lost.

Crikey

Wasn't sure I was going to get on the Internet this evening - the local electricity sub-station exploded, killing someone and taking out the power for the whole surrounding area.

Meanwhile, I read a hundred pages of a book.

I am glad that it is a long weekend here in the UK, as I'm feeling very tired today. In fact, I might just Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

I Am Exhausted

I have been gallivanting around London again, speaking to lots of different people. I am quite introverted at the best of times, so it was all rather draining. If you want me, I will be in a room by myself with the curtains pulled over, telling you to leave me alone.

:-P

Posted this Elsewhere...

Decided to share.

Six Word Memoir

I woz tagged. Your life in six words, photo optional but encouraged. After, tag some victims - suggested number: six.

Hokay, here goes... Drum roll please... Really need to pad this post out, as it all revolves around those aforementioned six words... Gotta pick just the right ones as well... Almost out of time... This is it... No turning back now... Hold onto something...

Introverted dreamer makes strange little things.

Oh man, that really took it out of me. I'm gonna go have a lie down now...

Diddums, Geosomin, Lulubunny, Michelle, Bobby, I tag you up good. Chiya, you get a time-delayed tag, not valid before 16th April. Anyone who wants to join the party, you're welcome too.

On Having Lots of Ideas

Sometimes I worry that I won't be able to get all the ideas in my head out into the world. They're conceived a hell of a lot more quickly than they're born.

If you know what I mean.

Who... me?

For the past couple of days I've been trapped in a rather aimless mood, wanting to do creative things, but not really feeling like it. Trapped in a hinterland of misdirected effort.

I'll leave this stern image of Uncle Sam here to remind me to sort out my priorities before he pushes the big red button and the curtain comes down...

Recovery

I was really ill over the weekend. I still don't feel 100%. There's a short story in the works and a bunch of other stuff I need to do. In all likelihood, none of it will get finished...

Gravity

After watching Jamie Oliver's last show about diet, including that mortician in the hat cutting up dead fat people, I decided I should probably stand on the scales and discover that now that I am well and truly an adult I am putting on weight. Instead, I discovered that I weigh pretty much the same as I did last year, perhaps even a little less.

It is the genes, I think.

Perfection

It sucks to be a perfectionist. Every little mistake or misdeed is painful until righted, and the memory of it once being awry still burns on.

In lighter news, there's a categorised list of free computer games courtesy of our favourite fisherman in a pointy hat here. And I'm not just linking to it because both my games made the list.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Read more.

2. Finish version 4 of Snowblind Aces.

3. Finish my mute cowboy game.

4. Write some kind of rough first draft for a novel.

5. Keep grooming my cat regularly.

6. Blog (an easy one).

I should probably have come up with better ones. I do not even remember what last year's were, or if I succeeded.

Ho Ho Ho

Well, I'm going to spend what's left of the year reading my way through the pile of books on my bedside table. It will be nice to take a break from working on whatever dumb project I have on my plate. Come January I'll see about getting my mute cowboy game out of the door...

Voting is open for Text the Halls - I've played all the games, and I think they all have something fun and/or interesting to offer. Voting closes in a week, and I'll post my thoughts on the other entrants then.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas. I will shortly resume whatever the hell it is I do on this blog.

Saturnalia

Well, I'm about to sign off for Christmas. As you may be aware, I love Christmas hugely, Christmas Eve as much as the day itself. I'd have disappeared from the internets sooner, but I had to put some finishing touches to Snowblind Aces, which you can now consider your Christmas present from me.

The most portable, but least user-friendly option for playing is to download the .t3 file from here and then find an interpreter to run it from this page. This is kind of like how you need a word processor to run a file containing static fiction. Interpreters are available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

If you're running windows, you may prefer to download a zipped executable from here - just download, unzip and double click.

After Christmas I'll put up a more comprehensive post, but for now, if you're new to interactive fiction, go here or here to learn a little more about how to play.

Have fun, and happy holidays from me and my cat. ;-)

Hazard

I have little left to do before the end of the week except stress out over what I've got left to do, but I've been trying to relax by working on Snowblind Aces. I've implemented about a third of my big dialogue web, and it's now possible to acquire a score of 5. I also have a long list of little niggles I need to iron over, some of which I am probably going to forget to do.