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fun but flawed
First of all I enjoyed reading this book for the most part. At first I thought it seemed a bit different from other Murakami novels but soon I realized that it's exactly the same as his other work, for better or for worse. On one hand it flows smoothly and you want to know what happens next. Any novel that can make you feel that way has already done something right. On the other hand it makes you feel like it is building up to something, like it's trying to reach some goal or convey a message, but in the end it never ends up anywhere and you're left wondering "okay, so what was the point of all this?".
There are specks of meaning sprinkled throghout this book, but for me the author doesn't manage to create a bigger, more complete picture. All you get are fragments and I guess you can piece them together but it's not very satisfying.
Many of the things that happen in this book feel like they happen just for the sake of having something happen. The "hard boiled world" protagonist goes on long completely irrelevant tangents and throws out a ridiculous amount of references to western pop culture, for no disccernable reason other than to satisfy the "hard boiled" aesthetic. There are times when these tangents are funny, or when they contrast what is actually happening at that moment in a surreal way. But at some point it all becomes pretty repetitive and you can't help but roll your eyes and think "yeah yeah we get it, get to the point already".
This book tries to be too many things at the same time and on a surface level it almost succeeds in doing so, but it's all kind of hollow and upon closer inspection collapses like a house of cards. Too many loose threads, too many tropey characters for no good reason, and even a whole parallel world that takes up probably about 30-40% of your time spent reading this book and doesn't really add anything.
The strongest part of this book for me was the protagonist living his life like it was his last day on earth. Struggling to even think about what to do when confronted with such a situation. At the same time appreciating all the little things he doesn't notice in his day to day life. Valuing how precious his flawed existence has become to him in that moment. None of this is particularly deep or avant garde or anything, but that is where this book had potential for real depth and relatability on the human condition. What we got instead is a sort of glorified random quirky action adventure or something.
Hey it's not a terrible book. Like I said I enjoyed reading it. But it could've been much more, and given all of the books I've read from Murakami so far, I guess maybe he isn't interested or capable of going much deeper than that.