Haruki Murakami is perhaps the best-known Japanese writer in the world, so when he started a temporary ask-anything website, it was no surprise that he was swamped with over 30,000 messages and questions from fans. To stem the tide, he had to suspend the website temporarily just to catch up on his promise to answer.
The undertaking raises more questions than it answered. In this day and age of Twitter, where the "real words" of celebrities can be read instantly by thousands of people, the very idea of direct communication takes on new and confusing meanings about the importance and meaning of writers and writing.
Murakami is a very appealing and charismatic figure to his many readers around the world. But it is one thing to want to read his books and quite another to want to ask him for advice.