It feels appropriate to finish this after sunset. This was my first Murakami and while I’m not sure exactly how to analyze it right now, I’m definitely going to be sitting with it for a long time. Atmospherically, it really captured the strange liminal spaces that can only be accessed in the middle of the night. I loved how experimental the writing was— it read more like a screenplay than a novel, complete with a fly-on-the-wall narrator which broke the fourth wall, making the audience complicit in its voyeurism. 

Reading this, I had no idea how I’d end up rating it. I think I have to give it five stars. The more I think about it, the more I love it.