Review: Hear the Wind Sing ⭐⭐⭐
A short narration of nameless characters from the summer of 1970.
Background
This is the debut novel (or novella) of Murakami that made him win the Gunzo Prize for New Writers and the first book of the so-called Trilogy of the Rat series.
Synopsis
The story is told from the narration of Rat's friend, an unnamed character who studies Biology at a university in Tokyo and is back in his oceanside hometown for the summer break. The Rat is simply a secondary male character in this story. The narrator recalls his and Rat's adventures from their youth since they were raised in the same town, to paint us a better picture of Rat's character and his upbringing.
He also comes into contact with a mysterious woman with only 9 fingers - the little finger of her left hand is missing. She is working at a record store in the town and has undergone an abortion. By the end of the story, she disappears from the town and the narrator never hears from her again. There is also the narrator's ex-girlfriend who was studying French, who committed suicide that spring on campus grounds. The narrator mentions three girls he has slept with (his 3 girlfriends) but special emphasis is put into the story on the last one, for obvious reasons.
The only named character is Derek Hartfield - a fictional American author who is somehow an inspiration for the narrator. Rat and the narrator spend the summer break at J's bar, a Chinese man, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
How does the novel start?
Writing is what 'starts' the novel and seems to trouble the narrator. He is stuck on a 'writer's block' as he tries to navigate ways to express himself through words - therefore leading to telling the story of his summer in 1970.
The two opening sentences can be used as a reference to the actual 'struggle' Murakami was going through - this first novel was inspired on a random April day while he was watching a baseball match in the stadium. Just when the ball hits the crack and goes flying into the air, that's when Murakami thought that he could write a novel. But he wasn't a writer at all, nor was he trained to be one. Therefore, the narrator, through the opening sentences seems to convince himself to let go of the perfectionism of writing and simply wants to let the words flow.
So, do we hear the wind singing?
The wind is mentioned as 'a character' in the fictional writer's book: Martian Wells.
For readers of Murakami, this might be the first instance of wells as a literary symbol of the unknown and where we end up when searching for meaning.
In this fictional story, humans find well-constructed wells (pun intended) on Martian soil. There are no remains of any kind of civilization, just scattered empty and waterless wells on the ground. People who went down these wells to explore them went missing and were never found. There was one man, however, that went down the well and after losing track of time and wandering, found the wells to be inter-connected with each other and the wells themselves ran through a time-wrap.
By the time this explorer had reached the 'final well' and was close to the sun, a billion years had already passed. This was conveyed by a voice - the voice of the wind. The wind seems to be an all-knowing being, going through the well system and time. When the explorer asks the wind what it has learned through all this time from the beginning of the universe until now, the wind fails to provide an answer and simply laughs. The explorer then takes his revolver from his pocket and pulls the trigger on his head.
This is the most 'literal' representation of the wind from the book, however, the wind is somehow present in the 'real life' of the story through the summer breeze. Whenever there is a scene of walking by the ocean, the characters lying in bed and watching the scenery through the window, there is a warm breeze that goes around and wraps them. It's like the wind is 'singing' the story of these ordinary-looking people in August 1970.
The wind is the representation of the flow of life, the passing of time, and the changing nature of our own self and the relationships we have with other people. Hear the Wind Sing is the plea of the narrator/author to be present and recognize this ongoing change, to hear our own stories and try not to control the uncontrollable aspects of life.
Themes and symbols
The main themes regarding the story are alienation from society, loss, relationships with women, sex, and suicide.
When reading the novel, there is a certain mood afloat that engulfs the characters, the breeze of summer is mingled with a certain sadness, nostalgia, and loneliness that somehow all the characters are experiencing.
All characters seem to be missing something:
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the narrator 'is missing' his words to convey himself and to write
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the woman is missing one little finger
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J, the bar owner, is missing a country he is from originally but has never been to (China)
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Rat is missing a connection with society, he is alienated and does not fit in with the current societal norms
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the sick girl from the radio is missing her freedom and life due to her illness
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the girl who made a radio dedication to the narrator is missing her record of California Girls by The Beach Boys she lent to the narrator
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the narrator's ex-girlfriend commits suicide - she misses 'on life' or 'adulthood' as she dies very young and thus stayed 'young forever' in a sense
... you get the idea
Overall
In a deeper psychological sense, the story offers a glimpse into the transitioning period of a young man from childhood/teen to adulthood.
The hometown and his friend the Rat, are representations of his lost childhood and the woman with the missing finger is his leap to adulthood: her inner pain and the abortion she had can be viewed as the loss of childhood and innocence in this case. The narrator is struggling to find his place in the world, by simply retreating to J's bar (a safe space) with Rat to 'drink his worries away'. However, by the end of the summer, the narrator returns to Tokyo and continues his studies.
On the other hand, Rat seems to harbor even more angst and a deeper existential crisis: he drops out of college and devotes himself to writing novels - a rebellion to the rich upbringing he has and the expected societal roles he must play. The themes of loss: losing people by suicide and losing parts of yourself to the passing of time is the central conflict that is retold in this story.
Theories
I have some theories regarding the characters in the novel. Not necessarily theories, because some readers might say these are very obvious, however at the same time they are also not really 'confirmed' in the story:
- The woman with 9 fingers is the same woman Rat was waiting to introduce to the narrator. When she says to the narrator she is going away, the time she is gone matches the time when Rat was stood up by his supposed girlfriend. She was pregnant with Rat's child but decided to get an abortion and cut off contact with Rat, which led to him losing all hope and falling into a deep depression.
- The sick girl is the little sister of the narrator's friend who lent him the California Girls record. She dropped out of college to take care of her sick sister.
- The fictional writer is Murakami - or a representation of Murakami and his ideal vision for himself (and the narrator) as a writer.
Rating
I would give this novel three stars out of five - it has a good setting but it fails to keep a 'flow' of the story, practically it has no plot. I do not mind the jumps in different perspectives or different times, but rather the lack of a structure. The story seems to be scattered and I feel like it misses getting the point through unless reading carefully and 'in-between' the lines.
Some of the dialogue is also pretty unnatural with random references and remarks that simply do not make much sense and left me scratching my head in confusion. But the description and the way the prose is written is good and it makes the reader go through the story easily.
Considering I have read more established works from Murakami such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles and Kafka on the Shore, Hear the Wind Sing has the author trying to establish his own writing voice and his style for the novels to come.