화제의 村上春樹씨 예루살렘상 수상연설
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작성자 관리자 작성일작성일 09-03-23 수정일수정일 70-01-01 조회10,366회관련링크
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화제의 村上春樹씨 예루살렘상 수상연설
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이스라엘 최고의 문학상인 예루살렘상이 2월15일 일본 작가 村上春樹씨（６０）에게 수여됐다. 예루살렘에서 거행된 수상식의 기념강연에서 村上씨는 이스라엘에 의한 팔레스타인자치구 가쟈에의 공격에 대해, 인간을 깨지기 쉬운 계란에 비유, 「나는 계란 측에 선다」고 말해, 군사력에 호소하는 이스라엘의 가쟈에 대한 태도를 비판했다. 가쟈 공격에서는 １３００명 이상이 사망, 태반이 일반시민들로, 아이들과 여성도 많았다. 때문에 일본국내에서는 시민단체 등이 「이스라엘정책을 옹호하게 된다」고 수상을 거부할 것을 요구했었다.
村上씨는、수상식에의 출석에 대해 망설였다고 말하면서、예루살렘에 온 것은 「메세지를 전하기 위해서다」고 설명. 체제를 장벽으로, 개인을 계란에 비유,「높은 장벽에 둘러싸여, 장벽에 부딪쳐 깨지는 계란」을 부각시켰다.「아무리 장벽이 올바르더라도, 아무리 계란이 잘못이라고 하더라도, 나는 계란측에 설 것이다」고 강조했다. 또 「장벽은 우리들을 보호해 줄것으로 생각할 수 있으나, 우리들을 죽이고, 또 다른 사람들을 냉정하고 효률적으로 죽이는 이유가 되기도 한다」고 말했다. 이스라엘이 추진하는 팔레스타인과의 분리장벽의 건설을 의식한 발언이라고 할 수 있다. 村上씨의 「海辺의 카프카」「노루웨이의 森」 등의 작품들은 헤브라이어로 번역돼, 이스라엘에서도 베스트셀라가 됐다.
예루살렘상은 63년부터 시작,「사회에서의 개인의 자유」에 공헌한 문학자에게 격년으로 수상한다. 역대 수상자로는 영국의 철학자 버트런트 라셀, 알젠틴 작가 홀헤 루이스 볼헤즈, 첵코 작가 미란 쿤테라 등 저명인사들이다. 유럽언어 이외의 작가의 동 상 수상은 이번이 처음이다.
<村上春樹씨의 예루살렘상 수상연설 전문>
I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies--which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true--the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.
So let me tell you the truth. In Japan a fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came. The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza. The U.N. reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded Gaza city, many of them unarmed citizens--children and old people.
Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.
Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me-- and especially if they are warning me-- “Don’t go there,” “Don’t do that,” I tend to want to “go there” and “do that”. It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.
And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.
Please do allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.
This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “The System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others--coldly, efficiently, systematically.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I truly believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories--stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
My father died last year at the age of ninety. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the battlefield. He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.
I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong--and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.
Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must not allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: we made the System.
That is all I have to say to you.
I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. I would like to express my gratitude to the readers in Israel. You are the biggest reason why I am here. I hope we are sharing something very meaningful. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.
---
이스라엘 최고의 문학상인 예루살렘상이 2월15일 일본 작가 村上春樹씨（６０）에게 수여됐다. 예루살렘에서 거행된 수상식의 기념강연에서 村上씨는 이스라엘에 의한 팔레스타인자치구 가쟈에의 공격에 대해, 인간을 깨지기 쉬운 계란에 비유, 「나는 계란 측에 선다」고 말해, 군사력에 호소하는 이스라엘의 가쟈에 대한 태도를 비판했다. 가쟈 공격에서는 １３００명 이상이 사망, 태반이 일반시민들로, 아이들과 여성도 많았다. 때문에 일본국내에서는 시민단체 등이 「이스라엘정책을 옹호하게 된다」고 수상을 거부할 것을 요구했었다.
村上씨는、수상식에의 출석에 대해 망설였다고 말하면서、예루살렘에 온 것은 「메세지를 전하기 위해서다」고 설명. 체제를 장벽으로, 개인을 계란에 비유,「높은 장벽에 둘러싸여, 장벽에 부딪쳐 깨지는 계란」을 부각시켰다.「아무리 장벽이 올바르더라도, 아무리 계란이 잘못이라고 하더라도, 나는 계란측에 설 것이다」고 강조했다. 또 「장벽은 우리들을 보호해 줄것으로 생각할 수 있으나, 우리들을 죽이고, 또 다른 사람들을 냉정하고 효률적으로 죽이는 이유가 되기도 한다」고 말했다. 이스라엘이 추진하는 팔레스타인과의 분리장벽의 건설을 의식한 발언이라고 할 수 있다. 村上씨의 「海辺의 카프카」「노루웨이의 森」 등의 작품들은 헤브라이어로 번역돼, 이스라엘에서도 베스트셀라가 됐다.
예루살렘상은 63년부터 시작,「사회에서의 개인의 자유」에 공헌한 문학자에게 격년으로 수상한다. 역대 수상자로는 영국의 철학자 버트런트 라셀, 알젠틴 작가 홀헤 루이스 볼헤즈, 첵코 작가 미란 쿤테라 등 저명인사들이다. 유럽언어 이외의 작가의 동 상 수상은 이번이 처음이다.
<村上春樹씨의 예루살렘상 수상연설 전문>
I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies--which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true--the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.
So let me tell you the truth. In Japan a fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came. The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza. The U.N. reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded Gaza city, many of them unarmed citizens--children and old people.
Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.
Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me-- and especially if they are warning me-- “Don’t go there,” “Don’t do that,” I tend to want to “go there” and “do that”. It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.
And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.
Please do allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.
This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “The System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others--coldly, efficiently, systematically.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I truly believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories--stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
My father died last year at the age of ninety. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the battlefield. He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.
I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong--and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.
Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must not allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: we made the System.
That is all I have to say to you.
I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. I would like to express my gratitude to the readers in Israel. You are the biggest reason why I am here. I hope we are sharing something very meaningful. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.