壁とたまご

村上春樹がイスラエルの文学賞、エルサレム賞を受賞した。
（2009 Jerusalem prize）
その授賞式のときのスピーチ：

"After receiving notice of this award I asked myself whether travelling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize is a proper thing to do and whether this creates the impression I supported one side in the conflict and that I endorse the policies of a nation that chose to unleash it's overwhelming military power. Neither of course do I 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 is that all too many people advised me not to do it, like many other novelists I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told, yeah..."

辞退すべきだ、という声も多かったらしい。
IsraelはPalestinian territoriesのGaza Stripへ侵攻し、
攻撃を繰り返してきた。
現在は一時停戦状態にあるが、封鎖は続いてるらしい。
"At a time like this"とはそういう意味。
（今さら人に聞けないけど、よく分かってなかったのでまずはここを読む。）
根は相当に深いのでどちらかが一方的に悪い、
とは言い切れないかもしれないけれど。

"I choose 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. So please do allow me to deliver a message, one very personal message. It is something I keep in my mind, always keep in my 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. It goes something like this - between high solid wall and an egg (that) breaks against it I will always stand on the side of the egg. No matter how right the wall may be, how wrong the egg I will be standing with the egg."

(from AP)

地元の反響は

Murakami, in trademark obscurity, explains why he accepted Jerusalem award

というタイトルで報じてる(The Jerusalem Post)。
Obscurityと題してるわりには、好意的？
スピーチの続きが載ってる。

"We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it's too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us - create who we are. It is we who created the system."

そして、自分が書く理由をこう述べている：

"I have only one purpose in writing novels," he continued, his voice as unobtrusive and penetrating as a conscience. "That is to draw out the unique divinity of the individual. To gratify uniqueness. To keep the system from tangling us. So - I write stories of life, love. Make people laugh and cry."

今回のスピーチの模様はこちら。

前回、春樹がカフカ賞を受賞したときには
こんな言葉を引用していた：

「ぼくは、自分を咬んだり刺したりするような本だけを読むべきだと思う。
本とは、ぼくらの内の氷結した海を砕く斧でなければならない。」
この言葉は私の書く本を正確に定義づけています。

こうやって簡潔にまとめる前の文章は、
KafkaがOskar Pollakへ宛てた手紙の言葉：

Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make use feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.

by Kafka, January 27, 1904.