This is a nice book, preoccupied with the gaps between people, and the divisions within them - with how people can almost but never quite feel or perhaps be complete, either in themselves or when paired with another. And it's about writing, and language, and, in some enfolding-yet-within kind of way, how they relate to all of the above. It's briefer than most if not all of his other novels, and perhaps for that reason it produced a couple of almost paradoxical responses in me. On the one hand, I found it quite tricky to get a handle on - while I 'felt' the overall sense of what was being written, I didn't really see the point of some of it. But on the other, Murakami seems a lot more obvious in places than he normally allows himself to be. In a way, they're both criticisms, I suppose, but they didn't really detract from my enjoyment, because being able to grasp the shape of a Murakami book is enough, at least initially.
Anyhow, saw a bit of myself in K but, to be honest, more, in some indefinable way, in Sumire (I'm still too young, undamaged, unpoised to identify with Miu); also, Sputnik Sweetheart seemed, if not sadder, then at least less optimistic than anything else Murakami has written, though I haven't really systematically thought about this...
