' If you're the sort of guy who raids the refrigerators of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the morning you can only write accordingly That's who I am' Hear the Wind Sing & Pinball 1973 are Haruki Murakami's earliest novels They follow the fortunes of the narrator & his friend known only by his nickname the Rat In Hear the Wind Sing the narrator is home from college on his summer break He spends his time drinking beer & smoking in J's Bar with the Rat listening to the radio thinking about writing & the women he has slept with & pursuing a relationship with a girl with nine fingers Three years later in Pinball 1973 he has moved to Tokyo to work as a translator & live with indistinguishable twin girls but the Rat has remained behind despite his efforts to leave both the town & his girlfriend The narrator finds himself haunted by memories of his own doomed relationship but also more bizarrely by his short-lived obsession with playing pinball in J's Bar This sends him on a quest to find the exact model of pinball machine he had enjoyed playing years earlier the three-flipper Spaceship