“If you paint a portrait, shit might hit the fan”

Overview: A portrait painter's marriage dissolves leading to him wandering Japan aimlessly until he happens across the home of a famous artist who's dying in hospital.

I love Murakami, so I’ll read anything by him. Compared to his other works, this novel seemed to drag on a bit, with a lot of situations seemingly hyped up, when in my opinion, they didn’t need to go on for as long as they did.

I feel pretty conflicted about this one. On the one hand, I enjoyed reading it until the final 100 pages or so turned into a slog. On the other hand, it's repetitive and minimalistic in a way that feels generationally out of touch.

The unnamed main character is in one of these classic Murakami in-between periods in his life, where everything has fallen apart but he's somehow fairly financially comfortable and has time to re-evaluate things. He gets involved with a questionably shady guy, and they start investigating some slowly unfolding mysteries. That should be great, but the edgy parts simply don't work.

I do appreciate the writing puzzle here. Murakami took five or six moving pieces and recombined them over in over, drawing out subtle progress. It was a mixed result. Some of the pieces are fantastic images (a mysterious hole in the ground, possibly connected to ancient monks who chose to be buried alive in search of enlightenment). Similarly, sometimes the combinations and slow developments were compelling, and the muted writing style came through strongly there. All of which made a good point that good writing isn't necessarily about adding more and more, but can instead be more about how the pieces fit. But at other times, the moving pieces just kind of fizzle. There are the usual consumerism turned weird elements of mystery that Murakami is known for, but unlike in Kafka on the Shore, this time they don't add up to anything at all. That's a theme in general: the ending is, in particular, a real dud, so much so that it erases most of the inner progress that the narrator made.