This story is something like a metaphor. There's a young man running from his fate and tormented by his past, and an old man living in the present and has no memory of the past, who is looking for something but he has no clue what. The two characters are somehow living parallel to one another but never meet. Murakami blurs historical periods, cultural traditions, music, fashion, food, and ghost stories in this novel as the two characters go through a series of surrealist adventures.

I highly recommend playing the songs that he mentions while reading this book. I always do this while reading Murakami and it really immerses you into the world. Describing what this book is about complicates things, but the book leaves us with no easy answers. I was left in awe at the acceptance of the shared confusion that both the reader (myself) and the characters experience.