Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami

 

“Hear the Wind Sing” is the first read for the year 2023.

The novella written by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami is the first one by this famous writer. It first appeared in the June 1979 issue of Gunzo (a local magazine) and in the form of a book the next month.

Having recently read Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by the author, I figured I would go rearwards and start at the beginning, try and acquaint myself with his entire body of work.

This first book is an uncooked write-up with a focus on the core human sentiment. The writing has beautifully grasped human feelings vis the immediate environment. The visualization is so vivid that it is like living the novel. The novella is Magical, mystical, and magnificent but otherwise seemed messy, middling, and monotonous. One of the most impressive things absent from Hear the Wind Sing is the plot!! …and yet it is one of the best-selling novels since 1979.

The book is about eighteen days in a boy’s life before he returns to college and about his friend named Rat. The Rat feels sad as summer break nears its end because the narrator has to go back to college. The Rat himself is a college dropout and feels left behind by all his friends who study. The Rat doesn’t know what he wants to do with his own life.

Each passage seems like an anecdote that follows the last chronologically but not in terms of escalating conflict. Some mysteries are never solved, such as a high school girlfriend that he borrowed an Elvis record and never returned, and relationships that don’t do anything. His relationships with The Rat, his friend, and the love affair with the nine-fingered girl, are not so much resolved as they are abruptly broken off as he resumes his schooling.

The writing style is simple, beautiful, and very much alive. I don't know how else to put it...The characters though they don't speak much are sketched in a way you believe they are real and out there living their life.

What to do with one’s life is hard to decide and requires some soul searching. This feeling is beautifully captured in the book.

My verdict- Read the book at your own risk (:p) because if it gets into your heart, the story leaves an impression and if not, it is just a waste of time.

Quotes from the book-

“There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.”

“Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I'm talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean.”

“Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same.”

“Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.”

“Still, in the end, we all die just the same.”