“According to Chekhov,” Tamaru says early in Book Two when Aomame asks him for a gun, “once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired.”

Later in Book Two, Amomame responds to Tamaru's request that the gun come back unused: “Meaning, you want me to violate Chekhov's rule.”

Tamaru replies, “Exactly. Chekhov was a great writer, but not all novels have to follow his rules. Not all guns in stories have to be fired.”

And so begins the literary experiment that plays out through all of Book Three: What happens if a novel violates Chekhov's rule? What if it goes on violating it for over 300 pages?

The answer is a prolonged study in literary stasis, in which everything is trapped in a whirlpool of events. There's a lot going on, but characters don't develop and the plot doesn't budge an inch.

Murakami is deliberately playing with conventions and subverting our expectations. As a result, dramatic tension runs through Book Three like a rich seam of rare metal. It's masterfully done, and it's fascinating and frustrating in equal measure.

An experiment is successful if you've learned something from it, and this is what I learned from Murakami's experiment: you can violate Chekhov's law; you can write an engaging novel in which a gun appears and isn't fired, but it's much more satisfying when it does.