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A Literary Agony Uncle

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Paul Whybrow

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Haruki Murakami, the Japanese novelist became an agony uncle earlier this year. He had a website dedicated to answering questions and problems put to him. His experiment in offering counselling last three and a half months, with some humorous answers that showed his unusual take on the world.

haruki_murakami_cat.jpg


http://www.welluneednt.com/

http://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ses-readers-writing-adultery-cats-agony-uncle

If you haven't read any of his work, I recommend that you do, as it will make you reconsider how a book is structured and paced. I read ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ a couple of years ago, and though it’s narrative flowed easily not a lot appeared to be happening in the story – except that it was all going on beneath the surface, literally in one part of the plot. It was very clever and memorable. I loved the book cover design, and there have been scores of others for this novel, such is the cult of Murakami :

HM-WindUpBirdChronicle(2010HarvilleSecker%20limited%20edition).jpg


Does writing come naturally? I like what he has to say on the subject :

Writing is like “chatting up a woman”, Japan’s superstar novelist Haruki Murakami has said: “You can get better with practice to a certain degree, but basically, you're either born with it, or you're not.”
 
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