If this is your first Murakami book, you might be captivated by the inventive "weirdness" of this author. There will be others that after this book would never pick up another Murakami book or those that weren't even able to finish it at all. Sad to say, but if I had never read his other works, I would definitely belong to the latter two groups of people. But I did finish this one and was utterly disappointed.
My first Murakami "Wind-up Bird Chronicles" (5 stars) and second "Kafka on the Shore" (4 stars) truly mesmerized me with their imagination, their "off-ness" and unpredictability. I awaited for this volume for a long time and tried, truly tried liking it, but... alas.
What's wrong with it? Hm. Where do I begin?
First of all, it's too long, unnecessarily so. The repetitions are tiresome and aggravating. I don't mind stylistic repetitions, however I do dislike the same thought repeated in slightly different variations (underline "slightly") over and over. At times I thought that maybe the publisher didn't notice that the same line got reprinted several times in the row or that maybe some lines got loose and just went at it - sticking themselves anywhere they could, popping up all over the place, annoying the reader to no end.
Another thing, if I would accumulate all the descriptions of what the characters wore and ate - it would easily sum up to 150 pages (150 pages wasting my time). "She took out the cabbage from the fridge, put some soy sauce on it, steamed it on low, added fresh vegetables, poured "whatever" sauce on it, pulled out a bottle of beer, opened it, took a sip, boiled some water, made herself a cup of coffee, sat at the table, drank it slowly..." OMG. Seriously. WHY?? How does any of this add to the story? Imagine the same monotonous narrative for the clothing. Agh...
Third and most important, the story. Do you know that joke "What does the hen think while running from the rooster? She's thinking, 'I hope I'm not running too fast'". Well, Murakami was running so fast that none of his set-ups got answered. (Some spoilers ahead).
Who are the little people? What is the air chrysalis? What was the point of what the Leader did with the girls? Why was the copy of those girls created? Honestly, I don't need to have everything explained to me, but I definitely don't want to read a story which is like a dark room, which I never get to see. EVER. If all the happenings were only happening so the two main characters could meet... then, I'm sorry, at least make it FUN.
And what was the point of all the side storylines? Neither Tengo's father nor his lover were necessary and there was no point to have them in the book at all. Aomame's graphic and tasteless sex escapades didn't add to her character either. What was the reason for the policewoman's existence? Although there was an echo between her murder and Tengo's mother's. Did you even notice it among all the clutter of this mess of a book? Here I thought "OK, finally the murders touch on the parallels of two worlds, etc., etc., we are finally hitting on something". But I think the writer himself didn't notice the parallel, because he was so busy writing repetitions and descriptions and unnecessary stories and confusing himself and going in circles...
As a conclusion I would like to say that if we base our view of Japanese people on Murakami's works we would think that they are all lonely, sad, depressed, abandoned, weird and pathetic. Hm...
It will take me a long time to pick up another Murakami again, and I will definitely go for his older books.
1 star (if that).
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