If you're the so r t of guy who raids the refrigerato r s of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the mo r ning, you can only write acco r dingly.

That's who I am.'

Hear the Wind Sing a nd Pinball, 1973 are Haruki Murakami's earliest novels. They follow the fo r tunes of the narrato r a nd his friend, known only by his nickname, the Rat. In Hear the Wind Sing the narrato r is home fr om college on his summer break. He spends his time drinking beer a nd smoking in J's Bar with the Rat, listening to the radio, thinking about writing a nd the women he has slept with, a nd pursuing a relationship with a girl with nine fingers.

Three years later, in Pinball, 1973, he has moved to Tokyo to wo r k as a translato r a nd live with indistinguishable twin girls, but the Rat has remained behind, despite his effo r ts to leave both the town a nd his girlfriend. The narrato r finds himself haunted by memo r ies of his own doomed relationship but also, mo r e bizarrely, by his sho r t-lived obsession with playing pinball in J's Bar. This sends him on a quest to find the exact model of pinball machine he had enjoyed playing years earlier: the three-flipper Spaceship.