I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 440 Thank you for forcing out Mr. Kitagawa’s “strongest form”!

After finally figuring out the matter of the sharp-tongued woman, Kitagawa Hide devoted himself fully to the creation of "Kafka on the Shore".

This novel is different from his previous novels.

Specifically, it should be the motivation for writing that is different.

In the past, people wrote books either to make money to pay off loans and improve their quality of life, or to express their thoughts and recreate the works of the previous life's literary hall in this world.

But Kitagawa Hide wrote this book purely for the Nobel Prize in Literature jury who "failed to recognize the great man" and for the Arnault couple who had disgusted him for a long time overseas.

For the first time in his life, he had a strong desire to slap someone in the face, and Kitagawa Hide was full of energy!
"Kafka on the Shore" is also a special kind of book among Haruki Murakami's books.

During the writing process, he incorporated the Greek myth "Oedipus Rex" as a metaphor, and deconstructed it using Japan's unique culture and social status quo.

Judging from his creative concepts and techniques alone, this book represents the pinnacle of his work.

After watching the original version of "Oedipus Rex", Hide Kitagawa was deeply moved by the sense of conflict in the story itself and the sense of fate from beginning to end.

He decided to strengthen this point in his own work, "Kafka on the Shore", and to make the taste of fate even stronger.

“This generation of Japanese actually quite subscribes to fatalism.

After all, since the 90s, Japan's bubble economy burst, major earthquakes, various disasters and massacres have followed one after another, bringing considerable mental shock to the Japanese.

Aum Shinrikyo was popular a few years ago because they were searching for fate and karma and believed in these things without a doubt.

Kitagawa Hide kept writing with the pen in his hand, listing all the historical background and content he could think of on the manuscript paper.

The novel tells the story of a fifteen-year-old modern boy named Kafka Murata and a war-era boy named Satoshi Nakata.

The name Murata Kafka is a paraphrase of Franz Kafka, the pioneer and master of famous Western modernist literature.

This form of Japanese name also has a strong sense of fate and the times.

Among the "baby boomerang generation" of the 50s and 60s who were born earlier than Kitagawa Hide, many people's names adopted this pattern of Japanese surname + overseas name.

For example, Johnny's Kitagawa from Johnny & Associates, and the original historical "healing queen" Banana Yoshimoto copied by Mayumi Aso.

Because the people of this era, both themselves and their parents, were deeply influenced by the atmosphere of the post-war era, and because of the defeat in the war, they developed serious doubts and lack of confidence in themselves and their national culture.

Plus the long rule of that five-star general.

They began to hypnotize themselves and enslave themselves.

Westernizing names is one manifestation of this.

In addition, frequently using English words in social and work situations, replacing nicknames in the company with English names, etc. are all phenomena of Westernization.

On the surface, this seems to be in line with international standards, but deep down, it is actually a lack of national confidence.

Using the protagonist's name, Kafka Murata, and writing that he is a 15-year-old boy will inevitably give Japanese readers a strong sense of fatalism.

In addition, the novel still uses the multi-line parallel narrative mode that Hide Kitagawa is most familiar with.

He has repeatedly used and improved this writing technique since "The Shape of the Strange Bird" and "The Master of the Knights Templar".

By the time of "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland", this writing style had been widely accepted and loved by Japanese readers, and even many writers began to imitate it.

For this dual-line mode, Kitagawa Hide retained some settings from the original work, while also adding a lot of content that is more in line with today's Japanese society.

For example, the era in which Kafka Murata lived was moved to the bubble economy period, while Satoshi Nakata lived in the most brutal period of the last days of World War II.

The strong difference and contrast in the times immediately brought the two protagonists' sense of fate and contradiction to the maximum.

In the Murata line, Kafka Murata was abandoned by his mother when he was 15 years old.

But he hated his father so much that he came to live in a strange small city alone.

Everything in his life is distorted, so his personality is extremely withdrawn and cold.

Kafka Murata's heart was also twisted at the beginning. Like Oedipus Rex, he wanted to kill his father and possess his mother and sister.

However, after he broke into the town's library, the manager Oshima became his spiritual mentor and gradually liberated him from that distorted life.

In another Nakata line, Nakata Satoshi also desires to grow, and is equally unfortunate.

But unlike Kafka Murata, he had no positive guide in his life.

After being treated unfairly, Nakata Satoshi did not consider leaving the harsh environment, but instead placed his hopes on a young female teacher.

Unfortunately, during the war years, the young female teachers' personalities were not sound and they were simply unable to take on the role of spiritual mentors.

Then, under her guidance, Satoshi Nakata completely embarked on a path of no return that was completely different from Kafka Murata.

The plot of the novel is not complicated, just like the play "Oedipus Rex", it is suitable for all ages and easy to understand.

But in "Kafka on the Shore", Kitagawa Hide created two young protagonists who seem similar but actually have completely different endings. This is to portray a strong sense of fatalism while also allowing readers to feel the two opposite emotions of despair and hope at the same time.

Most of Haruki Murakami's books are cruel and not beautiful, but they are still full of truth, goodness and beauty.

With Kitagawa Hide's deliberate adjustment, the "forgiveness" and "acceptance" reflected in the novel have become more obvious implications and can be easily understood by more readers.

Just like that, after Kitagawa Hide, who was full of inspiration, finished all the settings and outlines, he immediately started typing on the keyboard.

December 12th is the award ceremony for the new Nobel Prize in Literature.

Before this day, Kitagawa Hidetoku had "Kafka on the Shore" serialized simultaneously in major overseas magazines he was familiar with.

As for Japan, this time he plans to have the publishing house under Kitagawa Entertainment directly publish the novel in single volume, and no longer serialize it in any magazine.

Without magazine serialization, the novel's early publicity and promotion effects will be reduced, and many readers may not discover this new book until a long time later.

But the advantage is that it eliminates a large amount of single-volume sales lost due to serialization of novels.

Because Kitagawa Hide wrote this novel purely to prove himself and fight back against the Arnault couple, so his goal is very clear -

Break the single volume sales record of all his novels in the country and overseas!
Therefore, he would nip in the bud any factors that would affect the sales of the single volume.

Similarly, he will use all possible means to boost the sales of single books.

Since the other party has no moral principles and has started to use disgusting tricks against me.

Then Kitagawa Hide would no longer talk to them about rules and principles, and just compete to see who has the harder fist.

Under this strong creative passion, Kitagawa Hide seemed to be assisted by God.

I get up at 4 o'clock every morning, write for 5 hours, then start running, listen to music and eat, and continue writing after a nap.

At night, he would also take time to think about the plot and content of "1Q84", wondering how to write this novel better so that it could have a greater impact on Japanese readers.

Time quickly came to October 1998, 10.

When this more refined and profound version of Kafka on the Shore was placed on the desks of Saito Reina, Kaoru, and Ishida Taijun at the same time, Kitagawa Hide's three editors were stunned. Saito Reina was relatively okay, after all, she had been shocked by the "Kitagawa speed" several times before, and Kitagawa Hide was holding back his anger this time, so it was expected that he would be forced to produce the "strongest form".

Kaoruko and Ishida Yasujun found it hard to accept.

They can accept that Teacher Beichuan writes quickly, well, with high quality and for a long time.

But they really can't accept that a pure literary novel with a total word count of over 10 words can be produced in just two or three days!

If you write 30,000 to 50,000 words a day, your keyboard will probably be smoking!
And the quality of the novel is ridiculously good!
“It’s not that difficult. I write for five hours in the morning and I’ve written nearly 20,000 words. Then I still have time in the afternoon and evening.

If you try your best, it is not impossible to write 60,000 or 70,000 words a day."

Kitagawa Hide said this calmly on the phone.

In the later era of online literature, original authors could sometimes write 30,000 to 50,000 words a day, not to mention that Kitagawa Hide had a large amount of original works and materials to refer to.

He was not bragging, he was just stating a fact.

But this fact was still a bit too advanced and difficult to accept for the publishing industry in 1998.

The three editors praised "Kafka on the Shore" and had no suggestions for revisions, so they helped to directly connect with the printing factory to see how to promote and publicize Kitagawa Hide's new book through the three top literary magazines "Massive", "Beichuan" and "Wenyi" at the same time.

They could sense from Kitagawa Hide's words that Mr. Kitagawa wanted to do some small promotion for this book.

"I really don't know whether I should thank those Nobel Prize guys for accidentally forcing out the 'strongest form' of Kitagawa."

Saito Rena was secretly delighted, thinking that she would go to Stockholm with Kitagawa Hide in a few days. She was originally feeling anxious and depressed, but now she was left with only anticipation and curiosity.

at the same time.

The headquarters building of the Korea Literature Village Publishing Group in Seoul, South Korea.

Editorial office area, deputy editor-in-chief's office.

Chen Juncan, dressed in a suit and tie, glanced at Choi Young-sil, who was working hard to serve him by shaking his head under the table, and then looked at the email he had just received, feeling extremely excited.

"Mr. Kitagawa's new book. He even sent me an email asking me to help promote it in Seoul!

I’m worried that I don’t have any good performance books to boost sales recently!
God helps me! "

Chen Juncan's whole body was shaking with excitement.

He was able to climb up from a small editor who was about to be fired by the company to his current position as deputy editor-in-chief of the editorial department by continuously purchasing the overseas copyrights of Mr. Kitagawa's novels.

Unfortunately, as Mr. Kitagawa became more and more famous in Korea, the copyright fees for his novels also rose sharply.

In addition, other publishing houses are also eyeing the rights, and their Wenxuecun Publishing House has failed several times to obtain the publishing rights to Mr. Beichuan's novels.

This time, it was Mr. Kitagawa who sent an email to me personally!
"Kafka on the Shore must be praised as the best overseas book published at the end of this year!"

Chen Juncan held Cui Zhen's head and thought so in his heart.

Yale University, USA.

"Victoria, from now on, put down all your studies and work and do me and the teacher a favor."

Olivia, who has grown from a little princess into an attractive girl, broke directly into her best friend's room.

Victoria was still asleep. She opened her eyes dazedly and asked, "Is this about the Skull and Bones Society?"

“The seniors from the Skull and Bones Society will also be participating. We want to make Mr. Kitagawa’s new book, Kafka on the Shore, a hit in the American university circle.

Anyway, just get up and work with me."

Olivia simply lifted Victoria's quilt.

"Ah! Mr. Kitagawa's new book!" Victoria woke up instantly.

Now, under the influence of Olivia, she has also become a little fan of Kitagawa Hide.

"Yes." Olivia said, giving her a sly smile, "This time, I hid it from my father and invested all the money I had."

"Ah! You, you're not going to mortgage your company again?" Victoria widened her eyes.

This good friend of mine is a complete fan of Beichuan and is crazy enough to do anything for his idol.

Last time, she was confined to her home because she secretly mortgaged her company for money in order to vent her anger for Kitagawa Xiu.

"Of course. Not only that, I also mortgaged my shares in the Chanel Group.

Humph! It took a lot of effort for Mr. Beichuan to call me personally, so of course I have to show my sincerity!
Those damn guys, just wait for me!"

Olivia laughed, but her eyes turned cold, and she looked like a sickly little loli whose toy was taken away.

At the same time, the French Literature Society, Columbia University, the Autry family of the western United States, the six countries of civet cats, and the editor-in-chief's office of the British Times.
After receiving Kitagawa Hide's email, industry insiders who had previously benefited from the novels written by Kitagawa Hide took action one after another.

After all, they would just serialize the other party's excellent novel in their own magazine as soon as possible, with no loss, and they could also get a favor from Mr. Kitagawa, so why not do it?
that's it.

Just one day.

Kitagawa Hide successfully promoted "Kafka on the Shore" to countries around the world by making dozens of phone calls.

Tomorrow these magazines will jointly publish a special issue to serialize his novel, so that pure literature readers all over the world can see it as soon as possible!

It was also on this night.

George Severis, who had just returned to the mansion, was about to take a bath when the maid suddenly ran in hurriedly from outside the door with a hot printed manuscript in her hand.

"Mr. Kitagawa's new book? Is he really planning to attend the award ceremony the day after tomorrow?"

George Seferis had always thought that Kitagawa Hide was just speaking in anger, but now he saw...
After this naughty old man realized the problem, he didn't even read the novel first. Instead, he jumped out naked and directly called some old friends.

"Hello, Harry? I'm George! I want to tell you, you know Kitagawa Hide who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude, right?

Yes, yes, yes, that’s the one targeted by the Nobel Prize.

He has just written a new book and is going to release it globally. He also said that he will attend the awards ceremony the day after tomorrow.

Yes! I didn't lie to you! Why would I lie to you? Mr. Beichuan told me so himself!

Didn’t you say before that you didn’t want to attend that boring award ceremony? How about we…”

"Hello, I'm George, I want to talk to you."

The evening of December 1998, 12.

International long-distance calls echoed across the country.

This originally ordinary day suddenly became hot and uneasy.

(End of this chapter)