It is in my opinion that Murakami, with his latest releases, has lost his mojo, his swagga, but I will always remember his seminal work The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle fondly. The opening lines describe the protagonist cooking spaghetti al dente...you know you're good when you can make something as prosaic as boiling noodles sound absolutely poetic. And of course a character that will troll high and low to find his beloved cat certainly speaks (meows) to me.
