A Remarkable Coincidence.

I hadn't read a novel since winter break, having been preoccupied with school, when a week ago I was studying at the University of London library. I usually just pick a desk in the stacks and work on problem sets. This time, when I looked up from my statistics after a couple hours, I noticed that I was next to the Japanese literature section. I've been looking to read "The Wind-up Bird Chronicles" for a long time, and no public library seems to have it, so I thought I would check. The didn't have it, but they had another Murakami book, "A Wild Sheep Chase", so I checked it out.

Like any good book, it dominated my life for a couple days. It's a strange story (natch) which ends with a psychological anticlimax, the hero having lost everything, unsure of the value of what he accomplished, and without a way of going forwards. It was one of the books where you're sorry it ends where it does, although to be expected from Murakami, who specializes in driftless disquiet.

Then, yesterday, I had to go to the Quad (LSE's filthy version of an undergraduate student union) to see the entertainment officer. There is a good used book shop there, where I usually stop to browse (and usually buy something). This time, they had a Murakami book I've never heard of before, called "Dance Dance Dance". It was only £3.50, so I picked it up.

It begins with the author having dreams about the Dolphin Hotel. That's funny -- there was a Dolphin Hotel that figured prominently in the last book. Murakami must have a preoccupation with this hotel. And it's in Sapporo, just like the last book too. Maybe it's autobiographical, I think, and both of these books are getting at something that actually happened to him in Hokkaido. A girl told him they had to stay there. And it was part museum, the halls stuffed with dusty...fleece? Ah ha! It's the continuation of the last book!

There's nothing on the jacket to suggest that it's a sequel to an earlier book, nor was there anything in the other to suggest it was continued. I just happened to pick up the two books, one after another, in two different places, in the correct order, within a week. A fair real-life probability problem; or perhaps a real life Murakami novel?