I wholeheartedly recommend "Wind-up Bird Chronicle"... I'm so stoked to hear
those two B. Fleischmann tracks. Interestingly, I got turned onto Murakami
from Matthew Herbert's website... He lists that book on his reading
recommendations.
Anyone who digs David Foster Wallace, Pynchon et al should dig "Wind-up Bird
Chronicle"... it plays out, in many ways, like a less patently absurd, but
more dreamlike and surreal, "Crying of Lot 49"...
Murakami's style varies greatly -- I went on to read "Norwegian Wood" and
"South of the Border, West of the Sun," both of which are very different.
Much more elegaic, "realistic." Also fantastic. Now I'm reading "Hard-boiled
Wonderland at the End of the World," which is more like Vollmann's first
novel in its sort of twisted sci-fi perversity.
Anthony, that Cycling 74 "lifestyle" quote is hilarious...!
Cheers
phil