Billy Halibut reviewed Wind/ Pinball by Haruki Murakami
"The debut short novels--nearly thirty years out of print-- by the internationally acclaimed writer, newly …
Many everyday things still evade the study of philosophy (paraphrase)
3 stars
I am rating this just as compared to Murakami's other work, its ability to draw any given reader in off the street. It has heart, and has good ideas. They feel mysterious. The relationships between people are excellent. Would actually like to see him write about more male-male friendships, loved the strange connection between the Rat and the narrator, and J, the bartender. What Murakami fans will love about this is that Murakami reveals his roots here in these two novels. The origin of the well. The symbolic archetypes of his female characters. The well of his philosophical core also wells up to the surface here, and in scenes fans will be familiar with in later novels. Murakami showed strong here where it counts: 1. quotidian descriptions- when a character smokes, and what he thinks about mundane occurences, 2. random facts and learning woven into story- when a character learns …
I am rating this just as compared to Murakami's other work, its ability to draw any given reader in off the street. It has heart, and has good ideas. They feel mysterious. The relationships between people are excellent. Would actually like to see him write about more male-male friendships, loved the strange connection between the Rat and the narrator, and J, the bartender. What Murakami fans will love about this is that Murakami reveals his roots here in these two novels. The origin of the well. The symbolic archetypes of his female characters. The well of his philosophical core also wells up to the surface here, and in scenes fans will be familiar with in later novels. Murakami showed strong here where it counts: 1. quotidian descriptions- when a character smokes, and what he thinks about mundane occurences, 2. random facts and learning woven into story- when a character learns about something it becomes a quest, and the reader learns more about the topic at the same time, 3. dark nights of the soul; the deep and dark thoughts of a person on their own, 4. the effortless and beautiful metaphors and similies. I now sit at the bottom of my well of Murakami, dug here in my heart, watching the clouds pass by over its entrance, reading a book to bathe in silence and contemplation once again. I take a puff on my steamed broccoli robot appendage, and open the tofu pad thai take out from down the street. I gaze out the window at the sun setting behind the neighborhoods surrounding the park, and fall asleep.