My favorite social-media controversy of recent vintage was a September 15 post on X (the rebranded Twitter) by the esteemed Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami that read, “As a writer, you can write as much as you want until forty or so, while youth is on your side. But after that, it’s common for people to lose energy, and their writing suffers as a result. Generally speaking.” Many of those on the wrong side of that magic number took grave offense. “Almost every hour of TV I gave to HBO came between 40 and 60, so nah, I’ll be pumping good pages when I’m gumming food and falling down stairs,” huffed The Wire’s David Simon. When people weren’t cataloguing the achievements Toni Morrison, John le Carré, and other luminaries had notched in their middle to later years, they were calling Murakami sexist, classist, and ageist for failing to recognize that not everyone has the ability to take such advantage of their youth.
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