A lot has happened over the past month and a half.

Two of the vectors were personal injuries or health scares (which themselves turned up to be much ado about nothing, thank God). Much of the other happenings were borne from life getting busy and my blossoming interests in stories told in other mediums.

That aside, I finally finished Murakami’s debut Wind/Pinball. In brief, I really enjoyed Pinball, much more than I did Wind. This really surprised me. While I pretty much completed each in half a day, the atmosphere of Pinball (which itself weaves out of the established narrative in Wind) completely captured me. Contrary to my own preferences, Pinball completely relinquishes a coherent plot structure and instead alternates between the ramblings of an unnamed narrator and the degenerate (but on the road to reform) “(the) Rat”.

Despite that, the tone Murakami manages to establish by its end is one of aimless, irrational hope in the face of ambivalence. The only piece of media I can compare it to in it’s establishing mood would be Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland (2020). Really the definition of “I’ll see you down the road.” All in all, I would say Pinball as part of his debut piece bears strong allusions to the unparalleled flair that has come to be associated with Murakami’s longer-form, magic realism-infested works in 2025.

In comparison (and not to rag on it at all), I found Wind’s more grounded structure a comparative pain to read at times. While Murakami is the last person I would credit with being a boring writer, Wind definitely feels closer to something ripped out of his short story collection. Self-indulgent but ultimately managing to find it’s way home with a satisfying (if perhaps a bit cliche) resolution.

Closing thoughts, Wind/Pinball is essential reading for any Murakami fan. Despite all I’ve said, you might be surprised how much you enjoy them.

On any given day, something can come along and steal our hearts. It may be any old thing: a rosebud, a lost cap, a favorite sweater from childhood, an old Gene Pitney record. A miscellany of trivia with no home to call their own. Lingering for two or three days, that something soon disappears, returning to the darkness. There are wells, deep wells, dug in our hearts. Birds fly over them.”

Godspeed.