by Haruki Murakami

Translated by Christopher Allison

Concerning Summer

That would be terrible. On this planet, the winter is particularly long, dark, and severe.

Theres an old tune by Frank Sinatra called “ September Dreaming.” The meaning of the song is something like “from May until September is a long time, but whe

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n September comes, the days get shorter. Now its fall and the leaves on the trees are turning red. Theres not much time left” Whenever I hear this song, a shadow passes over my heart (even though its a great song). The time to die is, of course, summer. I want to live out my days feeling that.

If I were 九九藏书born on this planet, I would want to be born during the summer. I would spend my boyhood running around under the hot sun; the fall would bring adolescence and young-adulthood; my productive years and middle age would pass with that harsh winter; and in the spring Id become an old man.

A little while ago, I read a s藏书网ci-fi novel by Ursula K. LeGuin called Boundary Planet. Its about this planet thats incredibly far away, where one year takes about 60 Earth years. Spring is 15 years, summer is 15 years, fall is fifteen years, and winter is fifteen years. This is awesome. On this planet they have a saying: “He who can see the spring t藏书网wice is truly happy.”That is to say, long life is a good thing.

This is not to say that Id have a really long life and greet the summer once more. I think it would be great to die with“ah, I think I can here the Beach Boys playing somewhere” as my final thought.

But what about the people who live a long time, only to see th九_九_藏_书_网e winter twice?

I love summer. When the afternoon summer sun beats down on me and Im wearing a pair of shorts, and Im listening to rock and roll and drinking beer, I think Im the happiest person in the whole world. Its really too bad that summer only lasts for 3 months. If it were possible, Id want it to go for about half a year.