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It was in the summer of 1984 that I visited Prion,<dfn>..</dfn> New Jersey for the first time.I took an Amtrak train from Washington D.d on my way to New York, I got off the train at Prion Jun and took a taxi ao the uy. 1984 was the presidential ele year between Reagan and Mondale. Everywhere I heard "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Ja was wearing the silver glove due to getting burned on the hand. (That sounds like just a few years ago. Maybe because Im getting older)
The reason I came to Prion was simple; Prion Uy was the school F. Scott Fitzgerald graduated from and I wao see its campus myself. I had no special purpose for my visiting except that. My train stopped at Prion and probably, I thought, I would have no business ing here again in my future, which made me to decide to drop in the uy. After rambling on campus, looking at his own hand written manuscript in a special room at th<tt>99ｌｉb.t>e library, walking around the town, and staying one night at a shabby motel "Prion Motor Lodge," I jumped orak again ao New York. I still remember that the town gave me a peaceful and pastoral impression. It was during the summer vacation and few people were seen on spacious campus and the town looked drowsy. When jogging in the m, I stumbled upon many rabbits and squirrels around the area. (The ime I visited, the fields were replaced by a big shopping mall.)
Ahing I clearly remember was the taxi I took at Prion Jun. Nowadays lots of taxis are waiting in front of the railway station, but when I arrived there, there happeo be no taxi. The shuttle traiweeation and the uy was out of service then, I fot the reason, though. The Prion Jun station is located all alone in vat fields, and you could find no house where people are living. The passengers who got off at the station were only four; a woman in her mid-twenties, a black man around twenty, me and my panion. All we could do was sit in front of the station and wait for a taxi.
It was quite a long time before a taxi came up. We had started to worry about ourselves wheually, oaxi appeared. Feeling relieved, all four of us pooled the oaxi. The woman took a seat beside the driver and the rest of us occupied the back seat. The taxi-driver was a middle-aged big white guy. The taxi started with our sense of relief, but after a while the black mao me deliberately took his hair spray out of a suitcase, and after shaking it up and down, started to spray on his hair. I could not uand why he did such a thing in a taxi-cab, but anyway the rest of us could hardly bear it. He kept on spraying and finally the driver pulled the car to the curb, got out, opehe back door and shouted furiously to the black man saying "You get out here!" At first, he grumbled aed, but maybe intimidated by the tough-guy-appearance of the driver, he got out with his suitcase, showing no further protest. He must have been stoned s. The driver returo his seat and tio drive, and carried three of us to town, as if nothing had happened.
A little later, the driver said to us as if to spit out that "We had no one like that here before." "After inviting the business plex in the suburbs of town, ever more narcotics began to flow into this area. What oh will bee of this town in the several years?
Seven years later, I revisited Prion. This time I was going to stay at the uy for a long period. When chatting with an Ameri in Japan, I said something to the effect that "Id like to get relaxed and write novels in a quiet place without any disturbance." Then he promptly met a persoed to Prion Uy and made an actual plan foing abroad. He said to me "Now Prion Uy is inviting you. Your residential place has already been reserved. Pack everything up and go there by the end of January." I like this kind of Ameri alacrity.
It was the fall of 1990 whearted pag and preparing for our stay in the U.S. Though at that time we had just finished a three-year stay in Europe and e back to Japan, we were starting again to stay abroad without exactly notig why. I felt it was a bit hectic, but I didnt want to lose the good ce to live in Prion anyway.
The Gulf War broke out when I was on the way to the Ameri sulate. In a taxi heading for Akasaka, we heard the news on the radio tell us that the Ameri forces attacked Baghdad with missiles. It was not a good sign for us. We couldnt feel at ease to live in America when it was at war with a try, even if the try was very far away. But all the paperwork had been finished, and we had no choice but to go to the U.S. As a result, we had no war-influen our stay, but we didnt feel fortable iriotid maood of the society. Once I saw a student demonstration on the campus of Prion with a placard that read "The Gulf War is something...." I remembered "the good old anti-rotest," but when I watched more carefully, I found it was a "pro-war" demonstration. I have no iion to interfere in somebody elses affairs, but I took the fact to heart that the times have really ged. Later when I talked with a student at Rutgers Uy(it is a more average uy though), the student said "It is because of Prion, Mr. Murakami. We had an anti-rotest all right." Later in Prion we had violent trouble when pro-war students attacked anti-war students and snatched their placards and broke them.
But anyway that war came to a successful end, and whearted feeling at ease, the urbulence occurred; the rise of Japan bashing throughout the try before the approag 50-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor. This atmosphere was geed partly by the patriotism uplifted following the Gulf War, and partly because Ameris were searg for an outlet for their frustration toward the lasting dull ey in the try. I dont know how it was reported in Japan, but I felt it rather tough to live actually in that kind of social ambiance. Besides a sense of unfortableness, the air surroundien had something like a thorn prig me. Especially when December came, I rarely went out except shopping and often stayed at home. It was not only the case with me, but all the Japanese here felt something similar. In such a delicate time, a certain Japanese politi (you know who he is) made some remarks which rubbed Ameris the wrong way, which really made me wonder what oh the Japanese politi was thinking and made me so furious.
In one of those days, I was io dinner by an Ameri acquaintanine, and at the diable, a white Ameri (he was a retired professor though) let it slip and called me "You<s></s> Jap...." in the versation. That made all the people present deadly silent as if all of them had cold water poured on their head, .and the host turned ghastly pale. This was the worst thing that could ever happen at an Ameri diable. The person iion dido notice that he let these words out at all. Later the host called me aside and made an excuse by saying that "Haruki, he has no malicious iion, so please five him. When young, he was recruited by the navy and fought against Japan in the Pacific O. The military education he received still remains with him. We never have any private antipathy to you all." I replied that "I got it, so please dont worry." Actually I didnt care about it, but still now I remember how straihe people present were. This was a rare experience.
With these kind of is, my first year was rather teo me. It was rather a heavy year for Ameris and for us as well. Soon after this, the riot hit Los Ahroughout the year, I shut myself up indoors and I was writing a long novel. I seldom went anywhere and didnt do almost anything else. After undergoing mysterious twists and turns, this long novel split into two cells; one became a rather long short novel (or a rather short long novel) "Kokkyou no minami, Taiyo no nishi" and the other a rather long long novel "Nejimakidori icle."
Following this intensive year and a short break, my wish to write something like an essay gradually became stronger. Successfully I came to publish a series of my essays every month in a little magazine "Book" from Kodansha. The length of each essay was twenty-one or two pages of 400-character manuscript paper, and this was the lo essay I had ever published. But while writing a series of essays for one and half years,
I never felt each essay was too long. As is often the case with writers, I am rather a type of writer who thinks while writing words. Materializing my thought into words ahinking about it in a visual way, it often helps me a lot. In that sense, writing as many as twenty-one or two pages every month gave me a wider range of thinking. Probably during the past one-year stay in America, various things, I think, have been piled up which must be interpreted into words along with a careful sideration.
sequently the taxi drivers ay in 1984, implied in his whisper "What will bee of this unity in the several years?", might be partly right and partly not. In the point that Prion is still a peaceful aiful town beyond worldly affairs, his apprehensions ended up as needless fears. In spite of the increase of shopping malls, the ready-built houses for sale , and the occasional traffic jams in the m and evening rush hours, the basic characteristic of the town has scarcely ged. But his ay has been realized in that the U.S., including this small unity, has undergone some ges. Looking carefully at this try from inside, I feel keenly that it is a serious task to keep winning the wars oer another. Despite the collapse in the Vietnam War, this try won the Cold War and th<cite></cite>e Gulf War, but this doesnt necessarily mean that the citizens of this try became happier than ever before. People seem to be even more at a loss in the predit of serious problems than ten years ago. Both nation and its people, I think, o meet with some setbacks or defeats iurning point. But if asked whether the U.S. be replaced by some other tries providing as definite and powerful sense of value as this try does, my answer is ive. In this sense, a sense of exhaustion that the Ameris are feeling in general resembles some itg unfortableness in which the present Japanese are placed. In brief, this be explained as follows; the exhaustion of America caused by the distinct idea about what they should do or where they should go, and the unfortableness of Japan without any clear-cut belief that we are headed in the right dire. When fag these two choices between distinctiveness and ambiguity, the Japanese might feel what a heavy burden it is to choose their way to lead in future..
Writing essays for this book gave me the opportunity to think over various matters. But no clusive answer is given in almost any facet where some crucial value judgment is herefore, regrettably, this book doesnt help you get "the instant uanding of America." As an author, I am gratified if this book will be "a hint" to your uanding of the States.
December, 1993
In Boston
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