“I couldn’t wait to write this story.”
Haruki Murakami's last novel, written at the kitchen table in the middle of the night

The second and final full-length novel written by Haruki Murakami at the kitchen table of the jazz café he runs the year after he wrote his debut work, "Hear the Wind Sing."
This is an autobiographical novel that brings to mind Haruki Murakami's lonely youth, and the author has confessed that he feels a greater attachment to this novel than to his other works, regardless of its completeness.


“I have quite an attachment to this novel.
In this work, for the first time, I was able to focus my thoughts on one subject.
It's a fantastic pinball machine.
The main character, 'I', goes on a journey to find the machine.
“This kind of plot, or structure, blended well with my heart.” - Haruki Murakami, from ‘Author’s Note’

"Pinball of 1973" depicts the protagonist's journey to find a fantasy pinball machine that is now a thing of the past, and his process of silently enduring reality while overcoming the pain of loss and emptiness.
This is the second installment of Haruki Murakami's early four-part series (Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball 1973, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Dance Dance Dance). The 'I' and my friend 'Rat' from 'Hear the Wind Sing' also appear in 'Pinball 1973.'
And the title of the novel is an adaptation of Kenzaburo Oe's "Football in the First Year of the Rampant."


What Korean readers will particularly be interested in is that this is the first work in which they can discover traces of Naoko, who shared a heartbreaking love with Tooru Watanabe in "The Age of Loss" and ultimately chose death, thereby deeply realizing what it means to lose a loved one.

In May 1973, 'I' was alone looking for a station on a certain street.
I heard from Naoko that there was a dog that crossed the platform at that station, so I went to see it.
But Naoko, who told me that story, is already dead.
In other words, this novel can be said to be the first to show the diagram ‘Naoko’s death = loss.’


One morning, I, who runs a translation office with a friend in Tokyo, wake up to find twin sisters sleeping next to me.
'I' start living together with them.
Meanwhile, 'Rat', a friend of 'Na' who dropped out of college, lives in his hometown 700 kilometers away, doing nothing and dating a girlfriend, but in order to escape his sense of helplessness, he decides to leave his girlfriend first and then his hometown.


While spending strange days with my twin sisters, I was suddenly seized by the desire to find the pinball machine called '3 Flipper Spaceship', which my friend 'Rat' had been obsessed with first and which I had later become obsessed with in Shinjuku.
After using all sorts of methods, I finally encounter a pinball machine in a cold storage near Tokyo, and the scene where I reunite with the machine looks like the scene where Naoko and I reunite.
But the discovery of the pinball machine meant a new loss, or confirmation of loss.
As if to symbolize it, the twin sisters leave 'my' house.

I myself have a deep affection for this novel.
When I was writing this piece, I couldn't stand the urge to write, and it just flowed smoothly.
The work began to become independent and stand on its own.

--- p.5

“Why doesn’t everyone leave? There must be more livable planets out there.” I asked.

“I don’t know either.
Maybe it's because it's the star I was born on.
Yeah, that's it.
I'm going back to Saturn after I graduate from college.
I will go and make a great country.
“Tongue, tongue, revolution.”
--- p.14

When I opened my eyes, there were twin sisters lying on either side of me.
I've slept with women many times before, but it was my first time sleeping with twin sisters lying next to me.
The two of them were sleeping soundly, their noses resting on my shoulders.
It was a clear Sunday morning.

--- p.19

I consoled myself several times on the train ride back.
It's all over, forget it now, that's why we came here.
But I couldn't forget it.
The fact that I loved Naoko, and the fact that she was already dead.
Because in the end, nothing is finished.

--- pp.32-33

This is the story of 'me' and also the story of the man called 'Rat'.
That fall, 'we' were living 700 kilometers apart.
September 1973, this novel begins from that time.
This is the entrance.
I wish there was an exit.
If not, there is no point in writing at all.

--- p.35

Pinball and Hitler have something in common.
They were born into this world as a bubble of the times, with a kind of vulgarity, and they gained a mythical aura more by their speed of evolution than by their very existence.
Evolution is, of course, sustained by three wheels: technology, capital investment, and people's fundamental desires.

--- p.37