RaveThe Cleveland Plain Dealer...Murakami's new novel provides an intriguing and compelling inquiry into the impact of the fantastic and the unreal on the real lives of those caught up in its mysteries ... Tsukuru Tazaki, 36, an engineer by training, works on the design and construction of rail stations throughout Tokyo. But 16 years previously, he had been summarily ousted from a close-knit group of five high school friends. This dismissal haunts him, despite attempts to conceal its effect, even now ... What Tsukuru discovers is that 'the truth of the matter' remains elusive and contradictory, that inference and supposition and expectations carry much more weight in how one constructs memory than one might expect ...for the reader, at least, the pilgrimage has been well worth the undertaking, an apt, in-depth illustration of the impact memory, however imperfect, has on the present.
