This event occurs prior to the Sunday Discovery concert ”Sparked by Murakami with Violinist Jinjoo Cho”.

In this lecture, Haruki expert Dr. Lee Makela explores the author’s unique literary style of metaphors and symbolism through music.

“Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more. Next is harmony — the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow.” – Murakami Haruki (The New York Times)

GUEST LECTURER:
Dr. Lee Makela
Associate Professor of East Asian History, emeritus
Cleveland State University