There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.

And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it's probably because I'm looking at them in the light of what came later.

I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.

I quizzed him a lot on this point and i suspect the truth was that it was like a lot of things at that age: you don't have any clear reason, you just do it. You do it because you think it might get a laugh, or because you want to see if it'll cause a stir. And when you're asked to explain afterwards, it doesn't seem to make any sense.

Even at the time, I realised this couldn't be right, that this interpretation didn't fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn't an issue with me. The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance.

Your life must now run the course that's been set for it.

I find Japanese books quite baffling when I read them in translation. It's only with Haruki Murakami that I find Japanse fiction that I can understand and relate to. He's a very international writer.