Murakami and Repetition: Pinball, 1973

It was an accidental reading.

Saturday night, it was so boring. The day had been. The day before that --- or maybe it was Thursday or the day prior --- I hung out with a friend and he told me he saw an Ian McEwan copy of Sweet Tooth somewhere. Since he works at The Fort and we were at The Fort, we made our way to Fully Booked, thinking that that was the place where we could likely find the new Ian McEwan publication. When we got there, we looked for it and, of course, at the back of my head I was looking for Murakami's latest work, 1Q84 although I knew I wouldn't be reading that, well, immediately.

I just thought it would be nice to have something new by these two authors as I had recently finished The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. This trio --- Haruki Murakami, Ian McEwan and Jeffrey Eugenides --- have got to be my favorite authors. I was delighted when I found out that these three were coming out with something new between 2011 and 2012. The Marriage Plot... well, it was well-written but it wasn't a eureka moment. I love Eugenides still.

Fully Booked on High Street ran out of stocks on the new McEwan and Murakami books. How sad. Just who the heck are buying them now? (haha!)

I never really thought I would somehow end up reading Pinball, 1973 last Saturday. I didn't really think that this book would be in my immediate future. I've been aware that it's hard to find a copy, it was originally planned to be released in Japan only, and well --- it's an old book. Murakami's second novel, I believe, the second of the Rat Trilogy, the third of which, A Wild Sheep Chase, is the first Murakami book I ever purchased which would eventually suck me into this world home to a man in sheep costume, people suddenly missing, detached sex, name dropping of jazz greats, drinking in bars, and well, lots of coffee and cigarettes. And doing copywriting and translation works. It's a great introduction to, say, surreal masterpieces with Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World as one of the best ever.

But then, maybe I identify myself too much with his world.

Pinball, 1973 is a short novel. I finished it in one sitting... alright, maybe three. I found it, by accident, on my sister's iPad. After my nephew finally got tired of playing Angry Birds' Bad Piggies, I finally got my hands on it and started browsing as Nights on Rodanthe was the only remotely interesting thing on TV that night and I already knew that someone's gonna die. Gee, Nick Sparks, we always know. I guess this is the only Nicholas Sparks adaptation that I can stomach mainly because of Richard Gere and Diane Lane.

So I started reading Pinball, 1973 and, lo and behold, it was again another familiar exploration.

To describe Pinball, 1973 to those who are no stranger to Murakami's works, the novel is like being mid-way in grave-digging, with A Wild Sheep Chase finally hurling one to the bottom, which further gives way, and the next thing you know you're battling the freefall, similar to that image of Gandalf the Grey battling the Balrog en route to the nether-nether land. It's a great introduction to the conclusion of the trilogy. However, I already knew what would happen to the Rat, I knew where J's bar would end up... now, is the narrator the same guy in A Wild Sheep Chase? Possibly.

To those who are not too familiar with Murakami, I must say that Pinball, 1973 --- should you accidentally find yourself having a (digital) copy --- is that kind of novel that floats. It doesn't really have a solid plot and it's a very easy read. It's a novel of being suspended with a few surprises. Heck, to start with, the main character narrates casually an encounter with "someone from Venus", like this Venusian entity is just some co-ed in a sweatshirt, describing the good ol' countryside. And of course, the women. The women! Oh, Murakami's women! You are the quintessential ghost.

There is this moment in the novel that pretty much got to me. It's about repetition and how this relates to the pinball. I am not familiar with pinball machines and I do not really care. But I guess the core of the novel is a commentary on routine, on repetition. In addition to the obsession with the pinball, there are the twins. And of course, the guy who wants to get out of the redundancy. Life can be just made up of habits, of plotted action, of the expected.

I do think that this work is a good introduction to the world of Murakami, especially to those who are curious. The story is pretty bare, but there is substantial Murakami to go around. It's like appreciating and analyzing soup: something so simple but if you would dare there are surprising depths and complexities that are worth finding.