I read and enjoyed Kafka on the Shore years ago (although I could barely tell you what it was about now). After enjoying Kafka I’ve tried a few times to read some of his other stuff and inevitably end up stalling out. This has happened with IQ84, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and now with Sputnik Sweetheart. It’s always during the first chapter that I get bogged down in this miasma of being bored, and the reoccurring theme of one of the characters going on and on about some classical composer and the sublimity of their works (blah blah blah). It starts to grate on me as pretentious, boring and droll. Does anyone else feel this way? I was honestly kind of surprised that he has consistently used this same device in multiple stories I’ve read, to the point that now it just feels silly that there’s always some character right from the get go that is this BIG classical music aficionado. It might seem to be a weird thing to key on, but it just bores me to encounter it over and over, right from the start.