英語検定ライティング準１級（第149回）

村上龍「自由人の生き方の真似をしたかった話」

30歳の頃はいろいろ本を読んだ時期だった。本が好きだったわけではない。ただ悩んでいた。幼い頃に本を読む習慣があったらなと後悔する。特に村上龍の「1969」は影響を受けた。
At the age of 30, numerous books hit on me, but reading a book wasn’t my favorite hobby.
My brain was full of various troubles and problems because I couldn’t address what was around me well.
When I was little, I disliked a book because my surroundings forced me to read something I wasn’t interested in, but I should have obeyed these orders.
What attracted my mind was “1969” written by “Ryu Murakami,” which has essentially made positive or negative contributions to what I am, we agree.

彼が高校３年の時に学生運動の真似をして学校に落書きして立て篭もった話は今でも頭を離れない。ある女の子の注目を引くためにその行動を取ったという告白は複雑な気持ちになった。
He conducted a kind of the student activism and he doodled here and there inside his high school building with his friends at the age of 18, which has been staying in my head and cannot run away since I read “1969.”
Actually, he did such an unforgivable and immoral behavior in order to attract a certain girl’s attention, whose name was “Matsui Kazuko,” whom he was absorbed in enthusiastically.
His confession forced me to have mixed feelings and emotions about the student activism in my head.

1960年代に一世を風靡した学生運動も意識は路上ナンパと同じだった。それを教えてくれた本だった。最初から努力を軽視する冷めた人間は社会に貢献しない。だが熱すぎるのもなあ。
Japan’s society in 1960’s was affected negatively by the student activism, where not a few policemen and college students were killed in the battle, but such a movement with respectable concepts could be only a picking up a girl on the street, actually, which “1969” told me.
Those who despise others’ efforts or passions fail to make a difference in our society, instead they might make negative contributions to their surroundings, but too heated guys cause me to have a cold feeling.

この小説は後に映画化された。初日に映画館で観た。いいなあと思ってた俳優が主人公だったが、著者は爽やか系ではないのでイメージに合わなかった。内容の濃さも小説に負けていた。
His novel was made into a film, and I watched it in the theater on the first day, where “Tsumabuki Satoshi” performed a main character, the ability of whom I admired as a cool actor, but actually the author of this novel wasn’t featured as a refreshing appearance.
There was tremendous differences between this actor and this author, which deprived me of enthusiasm to taste this movie, and I preferred the novel to the movie because the contents of the film seemed to be extremely superficial, instead of being profound.

彼のエッセイもインパクトがあった。「男は消耗品」は今でも読み返したい。一般庶民にとってあの生き方はハードルが高い。読んで楽しむのはいいが、天才の真似をすると後で困る。
His essays had positive or negative influences on me.
I want to reread “Consumable Males” even now, which had numerous intensive impacts on me.
However, an ordinary citizen like me shouldn’t imitate his way of living because his behaviors are beyond common sense, and only a genius can make it.
We should be satisfied with only reading his works because imitating him would bring us to the most critical or frightening moment without fail.