The chapters alternate between the story’s two protagonists, Aomame and Tengo. It took almost the whole of the first book to introduce them and set up the plot. Aomame is a gym instructor that maroons as a dark justice-type of assassin who kills despicable men while Tengo is a teacher-cum-maths prodigy trying to make a break as a fiction writer. The first half peeks into their lives and weaves a plot where they get mixed up in a world with two moons, mysterious Little People and a religious cult at the heart of it.
Things only started to pick up after some chapters into the second book. Haruki Murakami’s writing is full of superfluous details and repetitions. Sometimes I get tired of it and doze off. There were a couple of times when I fell asleep and dropped the book, waking up the whole household. Fortunately, at midway, things started to get interesting. It was also at midway that I breathed a sigh of relief knowing I had managed this far and now that it is getting exciting, I have reasons to march on to complete the rest of the book.
All the mysterious built up in the early chapters are starting to unravel such as a mysterious teenage girl that seemed to run away from the cult, the elusive Little People that were mentioned every so often and how Aomame and Tengo are related and what part do they really play in this strange story. So far, the author is taking his time but the revelations are slowly building up to a crescendo… hopefully.
