From Powells.com
Staff Pick
Murakami's first two novels never saw wide English-language distribution and have long been out of print. Now packaged together as Wind/Pinball, the books are finally available again and include a new introduction by the author. These remarkable stories serve as a coming of age, not just for their characters but for Murakami as well. Recommended By Shawn D., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Wind/Pinball, a unique two-in-one volume, includes, on one side, Murakami’s first novel Hear the Wind Sing. When you flip the book over, you can read his second novel, Pinball, 1973. Each book has its own stunning cover
In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels — Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 — that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time.
These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age — the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat — are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakami’s later books, and form the first two-thirds, with A Wild Sheep Chase, of the trilogy of the Rat.
Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, Wind/Pinball gives us a fascinating insight into a great writer’s beginnings.
Review
"An invaluable addition to the canon." Toronto Star
Review
"The writing and, above all, Murakami’s way of making emotionally resonant images and symbols bump around on the page, and in one’s mind, remains fresh, miraculously, more than 35 years on." Evening Standard
Review
"A fresh, heart-warming dose of the Japanese master....Signals that would become familiar in Mr Murakami’s fiction make an early appearance: characters alienated by society and afflicted by loneliness and ennui; quotidian detail that is, by turn, banal and fascinating; musical references; supernatural undertones; dark dreams and black humour." The Economist
Review
"Both books have that unique blend of melancholy and beauty that Murakami manages so well; they are mysterious, moreish....What stands out...is the writing, beautiful in its simplicity, and also the deadpan humour and one-liners....The dialogue is sparklingly clever, drunkenly witty." The Independent
Review
"Powerful, unsettling, mature novels....Murakami gives his characters' quirks a humanizing legitimacy." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Early Murakami isn’t Murakami-in-the-making, it’s already and entirely Murakami." The Guardian
Review
"More than anyone, Haruki Murakami invented 21st-century fiction....He is the novelist of our mash-up epoch....Murakami’s atomic sensibility characterizes world literature." The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages. The most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.