On hear the wind sing by murakami (This is a dear diary kind of entry.)

“Hear the Wind Sing” is Murakami’s first novel. Why I picked this to be the book to break my 5-month long hiatus from reading (this excludes academic reading), I have no idea. I guess intuitively, I crave for a rebirth or anything that might delude me into believing that things can still get better in the later half of this year since the first half has been such a shit show.

This book shows the early progenitors of Murakami’s classic tropes — a young man having conversations about nothing with random strangers and a mysterious woman. It’s quite nostalgic to read Murakami now that I’m 28 years old. I admit the last time I finished reading one of his works was 4–5 years ago. Back then, I was still a little aimless and I see myself in most of his lonely characters. Now that I’m 28, my concerns are more practical and my sense of self is more stable. It feels like a luxury reading his characters, like tasting forbidden fruit. I yearn for my younger days without wanting to go back. Sure, I still salivate at the thought of smoking 2 packs of cigarettes but unlike the version of me from years ago, I now have the self-control not to reach out for one. So much has changed indeed. Murakami is like a life meter for me: how far have I come? how much of my personality has changed? how much of me has remained the same? At the core, I still am the same girl as I was in my early 20s. I still have the propensity to gravitate towards melancholia. I have the artistic temperament. I’m blessed with the curse of being perpetually wanting to feel sad without knowing what to do about it. Maybe that’s why I write about it now. To give this sadness some space.

I digressed. So, back to the novel. While I was reading it, I realized that it was probably the first Murakami of the 7 works of his that I’ve read which I am most aware of the characters being Japanese. For some reason, the characters of his other novels always seemed to have a Western vibe to them but in the Hear the Wind sing, they seem more Japanese. Perhaps because it’s his early work and he still hasn’t quite infused as much magical realism in his language that the setting is clearer.

I also remember my first attempt at reading this book. A friend named Carver was watching me while I read and he told me he met Murakami once and asked him if his fascination with wells is a metaphor for something to which Murakami of course shrugged off as unimportant to analyze.

I realized that this is not an entry worth writing about. All the thoughts that popped in my head while reading the novel seemed insightful and deep while I had them but now, in retrospect, I find them appalling. There’s nothing deep about them.

Perhaps the only good thought or feeling I cherish is seeing my sister’s graduation photo stuck in between the pages. That made me happy.