In his
thoughtful short essay, “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April
Morning”, Haruki Murakami captures what it is like to inexplicably fall in
love with someone. His creative fiction and nonfiction works have won Murakami
many awards in Japan, where his books are best sellers, and all over the world
through translated versions of his books. While walking down a street in Tokyo one
day in 1981, a woman walking by catches Murakami’s eye for seemingly no
particular reason, and he cannot explain specifically why he is drawn to her
since she is not outwardly especially beautiful. Yet he knows instantly once he
sees her that this stranger is the “100% perfect girl” for him and panics
because he wants to talk to her before she gets lost in the crowd. He thinks
about what to say to her, but cannot come up with something in time. After she
is gone, though, he thinks of a speech he wishes he could have told her before
she was lost to him forever. Murakami uses vivid language to describe his
experience and artfully expand an intense moment with beautiful details. He
uses metaphors such as “Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart” to put
into words all the possibilities he was feeling in that fleeting moment. He
then narrates his thought process, saying, “How can I approach her? What should
I say? “Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a
little conversation?” Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.” In order
to emphasis the massive internal conflict and pressure he was feeling to reach
out to the woman. The use of rhetorical questions, humor, and reasoning included
in his thoughts makes the essay feel very authentic. The audience feels like
they are inside of his head, allowing them to understand this rather abnormal
and abstract experience that most of them probably have never had. Overall,
this was a very deep and romantic piece attempting to explain why people
sometimes feel inexpiable connections to strangers.
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