Pinball, 1973 is Haruki’s second book, and the second in his ‘Trilogy of The Rat’ series (preceded by ‘Hear the Wind Sing’ & followed by ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’).
The only widely available publication of Pinball was put out by the Kodansha English Library, designed for students of English. Surprisingly, though ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’ got a global release, There’s a PDF available on the web (see the bottom of this post for a link).
I used to love listening to stories about faraway places. It was almost pathological.
There was a time, a good ten years ago now, when I went around latching onto one person after another, asking them to tell me about the places where they were born and grew up. Times were short of people willing to lend a sympathetic ear, it seemed, so anyone and everyone opened up to me, obligingly and emphatically telling all. People I didn’t even know somehow got word of me and sought me out.
The book is a little longer than ‘Hear the Wind Sing’, but still fairly short at about 200 very small pages.
As with many of Haruki’s books, Pinball, 1973 is first person – with an unnamed, detached, narrator and only a handful of other characters.