A damn fine book. Weirdly reminiscent of parts of Gaiman's Neverwhere (especially the underground bits), Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians (the bleak, blank solitariness of the End of the World setting) and, in the more humorous and zany parts, of Jim Jarmusch's films. It also has elements of Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things and Cormac McCarthy's The Road, though it doesn't quite plumb the same depths of despair. Despite these similarities (which, even if they were deliberate derivations would be acceptable), Murakami's voice is distinctively his own and he yet manages to leave you staggered at his originality and conciseness of style. This was my first Murakami read. It won't be my last.