I´ve been really into this Japanese writer lately... just finished "Hard - boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Very strange, the plot centers around these two characters that remain unnamed. One of them seeks refuge (from what?) in a secret, walled-up town that he can only enter if his shadow is severed from him. He gets a job as a Dream Reader and uses unicorn skulls for this purpose. The other character lives in Tokyo and is sent on a very strange job assignment for a mad Professor...
"The Wind-up Bird Chronicles" are also very strange, about some unemployed fellow whose cat and wife leaves him, and ends up a lot of time in a deep well.
The cat motif returns in "Kafka on the shore", in the form of an old man that had a strange incidence in his childhood and forgets everything, including how to read. However, he is able to communicate and sometimes talk with cats. The story intersects with that of a teenage runaway, who eventually gets a job at a beautiful private library, befriends a hemaphrodite who takes him to a cabin in an enchanted wood...
Marukami seems to be very good at putting ordinary people in the strangest situations, and even though I don´t always follow the plot (possibly because it has gaping holes in it) I am always surprised what he comes up with, and I love his use of language and his vivid descriptions.
What else can you recommend me by this author?
