Never in my life have I felt so definitively pranked as when I finished this book.

First off, the book has absolutely no substance. I have no clear idea what I gained by reading it (not even in the abstract), and nothing that happens in the book is meaningful in any way. This is not to say that the sentences are not well constructed or even that other people might not get anything out of it, just that for me this book was just a blank. It felt like it was trying very hard to be a horoscope, so that whoever read it would see exactly what they wanted to see in the extremely vague prose.

Ultimately, it felt almost offensive to me as a reader. It's so self indulgent and Murakami's style in the book seems to exude his confidence in the fact that he could literally write anything and people would gobble it up. For roughly the first half of the book, this style was fine. The book was surreal, but still had some logical storyline and basic sense of continuity. Somewhere around the middle a full year gets skipped and the book goes completely off the rails. Every chapter after that felt completely random, and I sensed that Murakami really wanted me to feel awed by his literary prowess when I was instead just bothered and frustrated by the fact that every sentence created more questions than it answered. It was only really at this point that I realized that the book was never really going to be concluded in any convincing way, and it's possible that that was part of what detracted from my enjoyment of it the most.

Overall, not a book I'd recommend mostly because I don't understand it (and am quite sure it can't actually be understood, since I'd be surprised if Murakami even had any idea what it was "really about"). I found Murakami's style in the more realist setting of Norwegian Wood more convincing and appealing, and if his other books are more like this (which I fear/have heard they are), I will probably stay away.

Also, what's with women in his books randomly getting naked in the moonlight? Definitely a strange recurring pattern. ( )

This was my first Murakami novel. I liked some parts of it a lot. Especially the first half of the story - a fascinating blend of reality and fantasy. What is real, and what is a dream? But I don't think the different elements of the novel came together and formed a coherent story. All the WWII stuff with harrowing stories, the young girl's ramblings, hiding in the well, etc. What's the connection? I liked Creta Kano and her back story, but she suddenly disappeared from the story without explanation. Well, overall, I liked the feeling it created of loneliness and the inability to know what reality is. ( )

Weird as hell but still strangely compelling although I got lost in the twists and turns that link the novel's parallel worlds. ( )

3.5 ( )

It was a refreshing getaway from the real world, but I didn't have that edge-of-your-seat-must-read-on feeling that most people describe about it. It was more like a not-really-sure-whats-going-on-so-read-till-its-over kind of feeling. It did get me thinking about who my alternate reality arch-nemesis might be, havn't come up with anything yet. ( )