What a great author Murakami is: mysterious, spiritual and philosophical at the same time and in the right measure. I am now on the fourth novel and cannot stop.

There is a fine line between the real world and the imaginary world, and it is not always clear which is which. The two overlap each other significantly, meaning that sometimes apparent fantasy is actually hard fact and hard rationality is imagination in disguise.

"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there &emdash to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there.

- Kafka on the Shore