Stephens Emms on falling out of love with Murakami:

So was our love of Murakami, like sushi bars, no more than a passing vogue? John Wray, who interviewed Murakami in 2004 for the Paris Review, offers an answer. “Murakami’s world is an allegorical one, constructed of familiar symbols ”“ an empty well, an underground city ”“ but the meaning of those symbols remains hermetic to the last. His debt to popular culture notwithstanding, it could be argued that no author’s body of work has ever been more private.”

I’ve always wondered about the miasmic oddness of Murakami’s fiction. Seems like I finally got my answer.