In this book, the Murakami hero takes on a political-business-industry syndicate with apparently limitless money and power, and he does it on his terms.
This is another novel that features an “other world,” this time taking the form of a labyrinthine hotel, in which the hero’s wife, Kumiko, is held prisoner by her evil brother, Wataya Noboru.
Its dual narratives portray, alternately, the mean streets of a slightly futuristic Tokyo embroiled in an information war with real casualties, and a bucolic fantasy world in the form of a Town.
This is the first novel in which Murakami takes up the risky topic of fringe religious groups—a sore spot in Japan since the Aum Shinrikyō terrorist attack of 1995.
Tsukuru Tazaki spends much of this story trying to understand why his circle of friends in high school expelled him from their group shortly after he left Nagoya to attend college in Tokyo.
Surely the most confusing of all Murakami novels, this one has three protagonists, each from a different generation.
This was Murakami’s first novel, and what it lacks in plot it makes up for in its innovative writing style—quick, light, simple.