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It's like a train wreck; one can't help but read the review of the Ethan Hawke book. (It could be worse.) The new Murakami, meanwhile, seems awfully similar to the old Murakami—looks like several of these stories are recent ones from the New Yorker. I'm starting to suspect that he's one of the postmodernists who leaves everything hanging not because the postmodern condition demands it, but because wrapping things up is just too much work. And who knows how to judge prose translated from the Japanese, but as we're getting it he has about four tricks which he uses ad nauseum. It's cotton candy—enjoyable, but at the end of the day you've had no nourishment.
