As usual for Murukami there is no avoidance of sexual themes or sexual patterns of behaviour There certainly is storytelling especially focussing on the young group of high schoolers who are suddenly torn apart with their later tales which will be unearthed and examined as the book progresses and also the odd tale of Haida which includes homosexual resonances along with colour, swimming, music and the notion of personal auras. The book sent this writer off to listen to Liszt’s ‘Le mal du pays’ to absorb the tones that coloured many of the different storylines contained within.Īnd colour and tones are a lot of what this book is about. As usual, for this author, there is a range of western music and literary references, the music especially ranging from from pop and jazz through to classic Romanticism. However, on occasion he is much more accessible as in “Norwegian Wood’ (see the movie and previous book group discussion) and in the present case. He is not always an easy author – the combination of Japanese culture, Japanese language and translation is not helped by the author’s admiration for Kafka. This novel is Murakami’s latest and has been received in Japan with little short of rapture (1,000,000 copies in the first week of publication). The artwork above is the cover of this book and the cover page of the Sunday Book Review of the New York Times which reviewed it.
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