Flipping Through Pages #23 - Hear The Wing Sing (A Book Review)

This is a story about life. And life is never coherent.

This is a story about loss. And loss is never managed.

"Everybody's gotta die sometime. But until then we've still got fifty-some odd years to go, and a lot to think about while we're living those fifty years, and I'll just come right out and say it: that's even more tiring than living five thousand years thinking about nothing. Don't you think?” 

Murakami's debut novel is mired in philosophical deliberations with a bartender and a confused rich brat among lustrous things like beer, music and the womanly persuasion. Don't come looking here for a plot or closure, Murakami is here only to help you look at life.

It is intriguing for me to come here when I have devoured more of the author’s bibliography, for it shows a lack of inhibition that seems to have come in later on to understand the audience’s need. While I do not think that makes for want of it being a better read, I find it refreshing to discover the more basic elements of what Murakami is searching.

And the search starts in summer.

The narrator finds a drunk girl with nine fingers and took her home, and that begins an exploration for both of them as an on-off relationship starts forming. And yes, there’s no fullstop. One day the girl isn’t there. She continues her journey; the narrator continues his.

All this is against a background of music and feline company that Murakami will become associated with (though I feel Japanese literature in general give a lot of emphasis to these two elements, and that is wonderful).

I like how this reads very much like Murakami trying to find his own purpose of writing. The Rat series is raw, without the masterful flourishes of his later works. Here is where we see what this man can become, as the written word swallows him whole.

For the second story in this book (Pinball), please go here.

So, I give it  9 out of 10.

+Beautiful flow in writing

+Interesting exploration of themes

+Like life, it leaves you with little closure but there a …..

+Rich imagery

-Rat as a character leaves a lot lacking