Wind/Pinball

"Murakami's atomic sensibility characterizes world literature." —The New York Times Book Review "An invaluable addition to the [Murakami] canon." —Toronto Star "Powerful, unsettling, mature novels, replete with many of the same distinctive traits that characterize [Murakami's] later fiction." —Chicago Tribune"These new-old books are short but by no means slight. Nor are they only for hard-core Murakami fans. . . . There are enough flashes of brilliance to keep the reader interested. . . . Wind/Pinball is a fresh, heart-warming dose of the Japanese master." —The Economist"A pair of early literary excursions that are never less than insightful and intelligent; brisk and diverting; unusual and transporting; and that offer a fascinating insight into the imagination of a young writer who would go on, as it is phrased at the beginning of Hear the Wind Sing, to 'tell the story of the world in words far more beautiful than these.'" —The National (UAE)"Wind/Pinball is a must-have for Murakami fans who want to know how he evolved and who might want to begin re-reading his work chronologically. It is a book that might even sway those on the fence because of the sheer audacity of his plots and the knowledge that even Murakami at one time was afraid he might fail." —The Straits Times (Singapore)"[Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973] mark the value of legacy, are striking even in their formative, flawed states, and clearly show a writer of innovation emerging and developing his formidable talent." —The Independent (UK)"Quintessential Murakami." —The Guardian (UK) "There is a profundity in these novels that is both laced with humor and left open to the elements. . . . There are themes here—of universality, isolation, fixation and the delightfully bizarre—that will play out time and again in Murakami's future work. . . . Wind/Pinball is a very fine beginning indeed!" —The Buffalo News"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 (UK)