Hear the Wind Sing (Haruki Murakami)

After reading Dance Dance Dance and A Wild Sheep Chase, I wanted to read the other two Rat-related books by Murakami. All four books have the same unnamed narrator, friend of "the Rat". Breaking my pattern of reading the books in reverse chronological order, I started Hear the Wind Sing just yesterday. Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973 are the two first novellas in Murakami's career. Deemed unworthy by Murakami, the books were limited edition in Japanese and very rare translated into English. Perhaps due to pressure from publishers, fans, or both, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973 were re-translated into English and released bound together in as Wind/Pinball last year. It's assumed that readers of the two stories are avid Murakami fans.

I've been reading a lot of Murakami, but have made a point to avoid the majority of his most popular words like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, etc. I did start with Norwegian Wood, but then read South of the Border, West of the Sun, After Dark, Color Tsukuru Tazaki, Dance Dance Dance, and A Wild Sheep Chase. Whether I've done this to train myself fro 1Q84 or to save the best for last, I don't really know.

I have to say, first of all, Hear the Wind Sing is not a great book. It's very apparent that it's the author's very first work, and he himself knows of its shortcomings. The style is undeveloped, and it's just very choppy. There's a lack of plot and a great deal of disconnect throughout the novella. A sense of flow is absent, and many of the sections seem random, and not in a humorous way. Not a lot happens, and the characters aren't terribly interesting. The story is under a month in length and it's not hectic in the least.

Flaws aside, Hear the Wind Sing has its own strengths as well. There are some very relatable pieces on the ache of growing up, the passage of time, and being at a loss for a concrete meaning to living. Though there's disorganized randomness, there's some sporadic. humor as well.