Murakami does a great job in this novel in really taking advantage of the fact that this novel is from Tsukuru's point of view. While there are events that occur that relate to what Tsukuru "does", such as talking to his former friends and resolving his conflict with them, what's even more important throughout the novel is Tsukuru's perception of himself and the world around him. There are so many parts of the novel where it is unclear both to Tsukuru and to the reader whether certain events actually happened or not, but it really doesn't matter. The journey through this story is so psychologically involved that anything is fair game, even (dare I say especially) strange dreams and hallucinations. Self exploration is a driving factor for the world that is created throughout this story.
Along with that, Tsukuru observes the world around him quite a bit as well, especially regarding the small details. His profession is based on recognizing the minute details of train stations and making them as efficient possible for daily commuters. Much of the book is spent observing similarly small details during Tsukuru's travels, and it really reflects his character. I feel like these details ground him in reality, and that's why he finds them so important.
For the entire book, we are engaged in Tsukuru's point of view and are left to wonder what this change in his relationship with the others has to do with him. Turns out, it has nothing to do with him at all. This part of the story may have rung truest for me; it happens so often in real life that we do everything in our power to get a certain outcome, only for a completely random and unrelated circumstance to change everything. It reminds me of the last episode of Serial (forgive me, I know we'll be discussing this later in the semester) where they discuss the possibility that Hae was murdered by someone completely unrelated to any of the suspects we have been listening about for the last ten hours (although that wouldn't necessarily explain Jay's motive for framing Adnan, but I digress.) Things like this don't happen in typical novels, where every part of the story is packaged into a neat little sack and everyone relates to everything. I love that such a feeling isn't the case in this novel.
On another note, the initial premise of the novel does remind me of many various manga and first-hand high school stories from Japanese friends. An extremely tightly-knit group of friends suddenly throws out one of its members, and when he asks why they say, "you should know why." Such cold and frank behavior is extremely common in their culture, and while people in the US do change friends fairly swiftly as well, I feel like the execution is a little different. Just an observation.
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