Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami

Blurb from Goodreads

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.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy first day of the week! I hope you all had a restful weekend. I am also hoping that you had or will have a great start to the week. We are living under strange circumstances and it is okay not to be okay. Nevertheless, I am hoping that you are all well, both physically and mentally. I am fervently praying and hoping that the pandemic will end soon so that we can all meet in person, have dinner dates, share our stories over coffee dates, and everything that we used to do before the pandemic begun.

Mondays also mean a Goodreads Monday update. Previously, I was sharing works of Latin American and Caribbean literature but now that I have decided to pivot towards Japanese literature next, the following weeks will feature works by Japanese writers. As most of you might have noticed, I am a huge fan of Japanese literature and over the years, I have been purchasing more and more books from this section of the literary world. One of the writers that was instrumental in my appreciation and interest in Japanese literature is the ever-popular Haruki Murakami. He was also my introduction into the fascinating albeit eccentric world of magical realism. Yes, I was flustered by his surrealistic world when I started with 1Q84, Kafka on the Shore, and The Wind-up Bird Chronicles but I slowly found my footing in his world. I have since read most of his fictional works, well except for his short stories.

However, despite having read 10 of his novels and novellas, I have yet to read the first book he has published. It is for this reason that I want to read Hear the Wind Sing. I guess it is the same case with Salman Rushdie and Grimus. I want to see how both writers started. I find it interesting delving into the debut works of popular novelists. In immersing in their first works, I want to find vestiges of the genius that trickled into their succeeding works. In some cases, I am just intrigued. Grimus, for instance, was a book that Rushdie disclaimed and I wanted to know why. With Hear the Wind Sing I want to trace back the roots of Murakami’s highly imaginative worlds.

How about you fellow reader? What work by a Japanese writer do you have in your reading list? What made you add it to your list? I hope you could share your answers in the comment box. For now, have a happy Monday!

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