Wind/Pinball: Two Novels

These two short novels are Murakami's first works. “Wind” (actually, “Hear the Wind Sing,”) didn't grab me, but “Pinball, 1973” did. Both feature the narrator and his friend Rat who frequent a bar owned by J (which is perhaps Murakami's own bar, as that's what he did when he wrote these stories). Rat has woman troubles in both books and the narrator is at perpetual loose-ends, although he seems to come to equilibrium by the end of Pinball when he gets the wax cleaned out of his ears!