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I first decided to read this book in the original Japanese. In order to do so, I got the English translation, to compare and check my understanding (my Japanese is not so good yet). Very quickly I discovered that the English translation, while obviously telling the same story, is rather a loose interpretation stylistically (there are articles out there explaining these deliberate choices that Murakami himself agreed to). So then I got the French version. The French version is closer to the original text; I was reading the three in tandem, and at around the halfway point, there was a sentence which the English translator translated as : "She changed into a red dress and went home" (he's talking about a woman he was looking at through the window) and the French translator translated as "My girlfriend came back, having changed into a red dress". This piqued my interest, and I decided to read other translations to see how others translated the original somewhat ambiguous phrase (she and girlfriend are the same word in Japanese). I have read the novel 4 times now, (Japanese, English, French, Russian (he agrees with the French guy)) and am currently reading the Spanish translation (of which there are actually two). I plan on reading the Polish and Catalan one as well.

Anyway, the book itself is a detective story with magical realism elements. I think you could call it a Haruki Murakami novel for people who don't like Haruki Murakami novels (it's quite brief, and doesn't really have much in the way of weird sexual stuff the later novels do). What I like about it is the sort of melancholy atmosphere and the parts that talk about Japan's history.

Since it deals with a former war criminal who is now a very wealthy fixture of the extreme right and who controls the media and the publicity/advertisment industry it's quite contemporary. Maybe I just haven't encountered it but I see few people talk about the political aspect of Murakami's work.

I personally recommend this novel, to fans and non-fans of Murakami.