Honeybees, Distant Thunder, and Talent
I kept writing and deleting over and over again.
I changed the structure, tweaked the phrasing, but then asked myself, 'What was I trying to say again? Doesn't this just say the obvious?'
After writing a review once, I reread the book, comparing the emotions that welled up with the draft in front of me. I noticed the gap lying there, tried to put it into words, and attempted to incorporate it again. Then I changed the structure once more.
I am currently entering the 'Autumn of Reading 2020' contest hosted by note. To use a word I just learned from 'Honeybees and Distant Thunder,' I am a 'contestant'.
Of course, this is neither a place where the best talent from around the world gathers, nor a grand stage where I stand before an audience in a special dress. I feel a bit guilty comparing a project that anyone can easily join with a single hashtag to a prestigious international piano competition, but I am, after all, someone who has entered a 'contest' and is waiting for someone's judgment.
I have written four book reviews on note so far, but all of them were difficult births. While comparing my drafts with the books, I have groaned, 'Hmm, something still feels off.'
That is precisely why I felt a bit of despair when I saw the genius pianists who appear in 'Honeybees and Distant Thunder.'
A genius boy who showed up in mud-stained hands and a T-shirt, looking at the audience with curiosity as if he weren't used to the stage, only to stun the judges with an incredible tone the moment he placed his hands on the piano.
A genius girl who, just because she was inspired by the performance of the contestant who went right before her, improvised a phrase completely different from what she had practiced.
A genius boy who, even when told that people usually feel pressure or fear when standing on stage, cannot quite understand that feeling.
How should I put it—I wanted all of this to be a fairy tale.
I wanted to believe that even amazing people get nervous before a big competition. That they only stand there after piling up steady practice and the best education. That they struggle with slumps and are devastated by the professional techniques they see up close, but work hard to overcome them. I want to believe that.
If that weren't the case, I wouldn't be able to believe in the possibility that I might have some kind of talent or excel at something. I don't want such a clear line drawn between ordinary people and geniuses; that is what I find myself thinking.
What is talent? I was thinking about things like that while reading this book.
However.
As the story headed toward the second half and each individual's narrative deepened, I realized that I, too, was gradually becoming free as I read.
I think the greatest appeal of this novel lies in the depth of the stories carried by the characters. Whether they are called geniuses or consider themselves ordinary, each holds their own thoughts, and these change in various ways triggered by the contest.
A boy who purely plays with the piano reminds a girl who once left the stage of the joy of performing, and then a young man inspired by that girl, and the judges who witnessed the girl's transformation, each find their own answers.
The talents who met at the contest stimulate each other and awaken. The protagonist there is music, and things like rankings or pass/fail results are merely supporting roles.
In fact, the performers who left the best results were the ones looking toward something that transcended the "contest results," something like a theme in their own musical lives.
Taking music that had been trapped in a narrow space and bringing it outside. Fulfilling a childhood assignment. Becoming a composer-pianist and reviving in the modern age the "joy of hearing new classical music" that people centuries ago experienced. Standing on stage as an ordinary "person living life" and proving that music is not just for the musical elite.
Their ways of facing music and their feelings toward the competition were all different, yet each story had its own weight.
It's okay to be free. The boundaries drawn by someone else don't matter. Not evaluations or scores, but "making music." Seeing the contestants who purely pursue that, and touching the characters moved by them, made me want to express something too.
For example, this "Autumn of Reading 2020" contest. Someone somewhere analyzed the assigned books and said, "Relatively unknown books are more advantageous."
I think, well, that makes sense. It's just as reasonable as the fact that many contestants avoid super-famous pieces by Bach or Mozart.
The prediction for "Honeybees and Distant Thunder" is a "fierce battle." I understand that too. After all, it is a bestseller that won both the Naoki Prize and the Japan Booksellers' Award.
But that doesn't matter. That's what I thought.
Because I am just participating in this note project as an opportunity to somehow put into words the emotions and sensations that were born within me.
That is why I chose this work to pour out my impressions. With gratitude to the pianists who stirred up my desire to express myself and to write, just like them.