Free From the Era

Last night I was remembering friend’s sayings about Murakami and Mishima.

After "giving up" Mishima, she started Murakami’s book and said;

"It’s so easy to read Murakami!"

This is what I felt about Murakami’s writing style and, exactly because of this, I don’t have any appetite for another Murakami’s book.

There is always trends. Most probably, one of the prime reasons why Murakami has been so widely read is because his light-writing style fits preference & taste that people have in this modern day.

From this point of view, I reluctantly have to admit that Mishima’s writing style is old-fashioned. Even I myself sometimes think that, back then, Mishima’s works were highly evaluated probably because his writing style fitted a literary trend of the 20th Century.

As a Mishima’s avid reader, I’d like to believe that Mishima’s writing style is universal, regardless of the era.

But, in reality, it seems impossible to be completely free from a certain influence of the era.

Rather, the truth would be that if the author is disconnected with the era, he cannot create any works that touch reader’s heart.

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Mishima must have noticed this relation between the era and the writer, as he talked about in "Spring Snow".

A relation with the era.

This is not just for writers. Even for us, no matter how we want to have an universal view & create an universal value, it would be impossible to ignore invisible, intangible, subconscious influence from the era.

We are always restrained and all our views are always somewhat biased, distorted & stained.