Book review by Patricia Sy-Gomez
Since this is the first Murakami book I’ve ever read, I didn’t really know what to expect. The story’s opening sequence of a recently unemployed young man named Toru Okada being interrupted by a strange phone call while cooking spaghetti is promising. Not long after that, we learn of a missing cat that may or may not have precipitated his wife’s disappearance.
After that, the protagonist meets many characters in his search for his missing wife and even learns a bit about the secret history of Japan from a new friend. At first you may not understand the connection between the narrative about the war in Manchuria and the predicament of the protagonist but just keep reading the book.
Sometimes it feels though that the protagonist lacks emotion or suppresses his emotions and that could make reading the book a little tedious. Toru also needs more of a backstory so that we could understand him and his motivations better but I guess that is not the intention of the writer who is more concerned with creating for us a very believable metaphysical world and introducing to us novel concepts like the self as container. The question of free will versus destiny is also addressed ever so subtly. Indeed, the book, through its characters’ conversations and experiences has plenty to say about power, obsession, desire, lust and death. There is a lot of conversation about the soul and the self as well.
Unlike the protagonist though, whom we barely know even if we read about his adventures and misadventures, the other characters’ motivations and driving forces are well-defined. Even the minor ones, we know where they are coming from. Everything is so skillfully described even their clothing.
As a story, it is an excellent one as it combines magical realism or surrealism with mystery and historical fiction. The ending is satisfactory even if I have a few unanswered questions. But I think that is the genius of Murakami, who wants to keep us thinking and to provoke us to question our world even long after we are finished with his.
