Completed November 2017

It's not news that I'm a pretty big fan of Haruki Murakami. I find his prose unique and engaging, his stories completely unique and most importantly (and hardest part to define) a 'vibe' that's pretty indescribable.

Since first reading 'Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' in college, I've made my way through 'A Wild Sheep Chase', 'Hear the Wind sing/ Pinball 1973' and '1Q84' (my favorite).

For the sake of completeness (as well as curiosity) I wanted to check out 'Dance, Dance, Dance', the third/forth and final book in 'The Trilogy of the Rat' (it's predecessors being 'Wind/Pinball' and 'A Wild Sheep Chase'). It can be read both as a spiritual continuance (the same unnamed character is the protagonist, and many of the characters and locations are shared) but also as a standalone book.

In essence, the book follows an unnamed protagonist as he returns to The Dolphin Hotel, a formerly seedy hotel he visited with a girlfriend who has since disappeared (see 'A Wild Sheep Chase' for details on the backstory). The subsequent journey takes him into contact with strange circumstances and people -- a teenage psychic, a one-armed poet, a movie star, reclusive artist and an infamous character known as The Sheep Man.

Murakami has an intangible 'cool' about his prose, that flows uniquely though unpretentiously. While the story indulges in some fantasy elements, it's done in a way that can most resemble a David Lynch movie, speckled with comedy instead of inexplicable weirdness .

While it's not my favorite novel of his, and in my opinion is not as driving in plot as it's spiritual predecessor 'A Wild Sheep Chase', I throughly enjoyed it and recommend it to any reader diving deeper into Murakami's catalog.