Good narration, book is good.

The narration was excellent. The reader gave a calm and detached tone to the text, that is in line with the book's themes, but still managed to capture enough vocal shifts to make it easy to figure out who was talking.

The book itself is good, and a Murakami classic. It didn't really grab me at first, but got better as it went on. It is dreamlike and remote, but then at times suddenly managed to really touch me. Murakami's fixation on describing almost all of the women in his works in terms of their sex drives, was a bit strange to me as I listened to this book though. But overall, a quality piece of writing that brings together magical realism and cyberpunk into a very interesting blend, and that often feels poignant despite (or maybe because of) its aloofness.

Murakami's Japanese is often described too me by my Japanese friends as too influenced by Western languages. Maybe that is true. As a European I find the Japanese to be enjoyable to listen to though, even if it sometimes feels very distant and cold.

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