There is no way that such a thing could be a talent granted to him as a novelist.
2011-08-12
The other day, in the book review section of some weekly magazine, a female screenwriter or someone of that sort wrote about the endlessly continuing sex scenes in Haruki Murakami’s novels, saying that they were not unpleasant, that they were beautiful, that human beings are ultimately eros, and that this was the natural gift as a novelist dwelling in Haruki Murakami, and so on.
I think this critic simply does not understand at all what intellect is.
A person with intellect, even when speaking of sex, never speaks of it in a vulgar way.
He speaks and describes it in the way this female critic felt.
Those who speak of sex vulgarly have, since long ago, often been the sort of people called “teachers” or the sort of people who brandish power.
This, too, is common knowledge of intellect.
But this critic probably never knew that.
There is no way that such a thing could be a talent granted to him as a novelist.
Such a thing is nothing more than common knowledge for a person with intellect, nothing more than the common knowledge of intellect.
As of August 12, 2011, I had already pointed out the abnormality of Japanese literary evaluation surrounding Haruki Murakami.
The issue was not the skill or lack of skill in Haruki Murakami’s sexual descriptions themselves.
The issue was precisely the lack of intellect among the critics who praised them as “a natural gift as a novelist.”
To speak of sex without vulgarity is not some special talent.
For a person with intellect, it is nothing more than common sense.
It is nothing more than the common knowledge of intellect.
I had already written this point clearly fifteen years ago.