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  1. The New YorkerDeborah Treisman2/10/1935 min
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    The New Yorker
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    • deephdave
      Top reader of all timeScoutScribe
      4 years ago

      Reading more about Haruki Murakami, as always enchanting!

      But I have a definition of a gentleman novelist: first, he doesn’t talk about the income tax he has paid; second, he doesn’t write about his ex-girlfriends or ex-wives; and, third, he doesn’t think about the Nobel Prize for Literature. So, Deborah, please don’t ask me about those three things. I would be in trouble.

      So I look around that world and I describe what I see, and then I come back. Coming back is important. If you cannot come back, it’s scary. But I’m a professional, so I can come back.

      I have learned so many things from music about writing. I think there are three important elements: rhythm, harmony, and free improvisation. I learned these things from music, not from literature. And when I started to write, I tried to write as though I were playing music.