Wind/Pinball: Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 (Two Novels)

by Haruki Murakami, Ted Goossen (Translator)

Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Wind/Pinball, a unique two-in-one volume, includes, on one side, Murakami’s first novel Hear the Wind Sing. When you flip the book over, you can read his second novel, Pinball, 1973. Each book has its own stunning cover.

In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels—Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973—that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time.

These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age—the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat—are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakami’s later books, and form the first two-thirds, with A Wild Sheep Chase, of the trilogy of the Rat. 

Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, Wind/Pinball gives us a fascinating insight into a great writer’s beginnings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804170147
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/03/2016
Series:	Vintage International
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	114,700
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.

Hometown:

Tokyo, Japan

Date of Birth:

January 12, 1949

Place of Birth:

Kyoto, Japan

Education:

Waseda University, 1973

Website:

http://www.harukimurakami.com

Read an Excerpt

The twins woke me up on Thursday morning. Fifteen minutes earlier than usual, but what the heck. I shaved, drank my cof­fee, and pored over the morning paper, so fresh from the press that its ink looked ready to smear my hands.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Wind/Pinball"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Haruki Murakami.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Reading Group Guide

The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Wind/Pinball, the first two novels—newly translated and widely available in English for the first time—from internationally celebrated writer Haruki Murakami.

1. Discuss the introduction in relation to the content of both novels. Consider this statement, found on page xv: “It is the inherent right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language in every way they can imagine.” What stylistic risks were present in these novels?

2. On page xvii, Murakami describes Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 as his “kitchen-table novels.” What information did you find most surprising or revelatory about Murakami’s beginnings as a writer?

3. Hear the Wind Sing opens with thoughts about the writing process and its relation to general satisfaction with life. Why do you think the protagonist evokes fictitious Derek Hartfield’s experiences? How does Hartfield’s status as a “fighter…a man who used words as weapons” echo throughout the novel?

4. How would you characterize the Rat? How does his personality shift or change between the two novels? What does the Rat value most in life?

5. Discuss the relationship between the protagonist and the Rat. What common traits do they share? How do they complement each other?

6. Few characters in Wind/Pinball are acknowledged by their given names, and are instead referred to by general identifiers: “the girl,” “the twins,” “the Rat.” Why do you think Murakami made this stylistic decision? What effect does it have on the reader? What does this choice assert about identity?

7. In Hear the Wind Sing, the protagonist comments that the Rat “out-and-out despised” the rich (page 9), despite being born into a wealthy family. What role do class and status play in these novels? How does Rat actively fight his upbringing and social class?

8. Both Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 feature moments of extreme malaise from its protagonists. How do the narrator and the Rat abate their sadness? What comforts—if only temporary solutions—do they afford themselves in their despair?

9. Discuss the protagonist’s childhood and adolescence as presented in Hear the Wind Sing. What clues are you given about his personality via descriptions of his upbringing? How does his doctor’s dictum, “Civilization is communication,” echo throughout both novels?

10. J the bartender maintains a significant presence in Wind/Pinball. What is his role in the novels? How does he act as a soundboard for both the protagonist and the Rat?

11. On page 25, the protagonist comments that “for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was like to meet a girl under normal circumstances.” Examine his relationship with women as discussed in these novels. How do his early experiences with women affect his outlook on life?

12. The section “On the Birth of Pinball” discusses the innovation and creation of the pinball machine. Why do you think the protagonist is invested in pinball as both a practice and an invention?

13. On pages 124–7, the protagonist discusses his career as a translator. How does he react to his financial success? What—if anything—does he values about his career?

14. Discuss the role of the twins in Pinball, 1973. What do we learn about them over the course of the novel?

15. Analyze the journey that the protagonist takes in Pinball, 1973 wherein the protagonist seeks out the elusive pinball machine from J’s bar. Discuss the scene in which he is brought to the warehouse. What significance does the machine hold in his life?

16. Murakami seamlessly blends moments of surrealism among scenes of day-to-day trivialities. What moments bent reality for you during your reading experience? How did you interpret them?

17. There is striking visual imagery in both Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973. What scenes resonated most with you?

18. What other works by Murakami have you read? Did you find these novels to fit in his oeuvre? Can you trace any commonalities between these works and others?

Editorial Reviews

More than anyone, Haruki Murakami invented 21st-century fiction. . . . He is the novelist of our mash-up epoch. . . . Murakami’s atomic sensibility characterizes world literature." —The New York Times Book Review

“Powerful, unsettling, mature novels. . . . Murakami gives his characters' quirks a humanizing legitimacy.” —Chicago Tribune
 
“Early Murakami isn’t Murakami-in-the-making, it’s already and entirely Murakami.” —The Guardian
 
“Both books have that unique blend of melancholy and beauty that Murakami manages so well; they are mysterious, moreish. . . . What stands out . . . is the writing, beautiful in its simplicity, and also the deadpan humour and one-liners. . . . The dialogue is sparklingly clever, drunkenly witty.” —The Independent

“A fresh, heart-warming dose of the Japanese master. . . . Signals that would become familiar in Mr Murakami’s fiction make an early appearance: characters alienated by society and afflicted by loneliness and ennui; quotidian detail that is, by turn, banal and fascinating; musical references; supernatural undertones; dark dreams and black humour.” —The Economist
 
“Murakami's trademark postmodernist flourishes abound . . . and never fail to surprise and delight.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Short, darkly magical coming-of-age tales.” —Elle
 
“Indispensable. . . . There is evidence of the themes, motifs and yes, obsessions, that would come to infuse his later books.” —The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg)
 
“An invaluable addition to the canon.” —Toronto Star
 
“A great treat—both for Murakami enthusiasts and for the more casually interested reader. . . . A pair of early literary excursions that are never less than insightful and intelligent; brisk and diverting; unusual and transporting.” —The National (UAE)
 
“The writing and, above all, 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

From the Publisher

03/15/2015
Murakami is more popular than you ever imagined; 3.25 million copies of his 16-book backlist are in readers' hands, and Colorless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage has sold upwards of 86,000 copies, having debuted last fall as No. 1 on the New York Times best sellers list. Here, the publisher releases two major early works—prequels to A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance—nearly 30 years out of print, newly translated, and together in a single volume with an exclusive introductory essay by the author.

Library Journal