Haruki Murakami - first 2 novels - help with obtaining files I've found?

[sayumi_fan]

I'm a bit of a fan of the Japanese author Haruki Murakami - hope that doesn't make me too weird?  Anyway, some might know that his first two novels are very hard to get in English;  they are the ones which come before "A Wild Sheep Chase" which IS easily available and which I have read... and kinda worried about...  but got me hooked on Murakami.

ANYWAY...  to cut to the chase:  I have found what seems to be his first two novels as part of some files, but am having trouble accessing them.  It might partly be cos I am on dialup, though the files aren't large.

If I go to this site:  http://career-english.ru/library.htm  -  I find that about three-quarters the way down, there is a link to this page:   http://ifolder.ru/1277620  -  which is in Russian.  Using Google translate I can work out that you need to access some of the ads to supposedly be able to download the file, but it doesn't seem to work as expected??

The other place that has it is the German torrent site Pirate Bay - at this link - with dialup I can't normally access torrents but the file is tiny and the torrent file seems to try to work thru Shareaza, which I do have...  but I think maybe no-one is seeding that old torrent any more.  Can anyone please confirm this or otherwise.

Finally, if anyone knows a better place to get either of these online, I'd be grateful.  The titles are:  "Pinball, 1973"  and  "Hear the Wind Sing". 

(By the way, the actual books are kinda available - but not in my price range.  There's currently a copy of "Pinball, 1973" on eBay for $250.  That's the cheap one.  Amazon Japan seems to be selling a copy of "Hear the Wind Sing" - for about 7 million yen, heh heh ...  I think that's about USD $60,000.00 !!)  BTW, Murakami doesn't seem to want these republished in English - Kodansha did them in the 1980s, mainly for pple who wanted to use them to learn English, it seems).

Help...  puh-leeeze!!   

[~Dan~]

I downloaded the torrent.
http://sharebee.com/0fd02b71
It contains what you wanted, Hear the wind sing & Pinball 1973 as pdf files in English.

I didn't have any luck with the Russian thing.  It said that the foreign traffic exceeds the Russian traffic and you have to click ads, but it doesn't work.

EDIT: I used a Russian proxy to give me a Russian ip and managed to get it.
http://sharebee.com/ff2f19ed
This one contains 5 files (Hear the wind sing, pinball, Murakami H_DANCE DANCE DANCE,murakami-bird, norwegian-wood.zip).  Theyre .fb2 files though, so I dunno what to do with them to read them.
They seem to be html files with a FictionBook header, whatever that is.  I renamed one as .html and it's readable in your browser.

[sayumi_fan]

Wow!  Thanks a whole heap here, ~Dan~  !!   Amazing bit of work there...  so even the torrent WAS available?  Great!  Your trouble is hugely appreciated!  Using a Russian proxy?  Heh, now you're waaaaaay beyond anything I know...  So, thanks for putting your skills to work for those...  and I see a few others must have wanted these too, cos more pple accessed those links before me!

And...  that sharebee looks like a great resource!  <Bookmarks for future!>

Thanks ~Dan~ !!

[~Dan~]

Yes, the torrent was available.  First it said there was one seed, then there wasn't, then there was, so I just left it in Azureus and next time I looked it'd downloaded.

I might read them myself when I get the time.  Which do you recommend I read first?

[sayumi_fan]

I might read them myself when I get the time.  Which do you recommend I read first?

Phew, what a weekend!  Just didn't get back here...  so sorry for delay in responding!

It turns out that the version of "Hear the Wind Sing" is just a few pages, not the whole book;  that's the same in both downloads, so they're obviously from a common source.  However, I have now just bought a copy on eBay at a price waaaay under 7 million yen...  like, I think I misread Amazon Japan, they've run the price and the shipping price together and it comes out weird when using Google Translate).  So...  when I get my copy, I intend to scan it and post it around as a PDF.

"Pinball" may also be only part of the book, though it's a lot more of it than the first one.  I'm still trying to establish whether there's more of it.

It's hard to know where to start with Murakami.  Maybe some others have recommendations too, and there's a good thread about his books here - most of the links in it are dead though, cos it's a coupla years old.  There's also a coupla good pages here and here.  Personally I have only read "A Wild Sheep Chase" and his short stories "After the Quake";  I now intend to read "Hear the Wind Sing" and "Pinball, 1973" before anything else and then read "Wild Sheep" again - cos those two come before it.  Then "Dance Dance Dance" cos it's the 4th book of the 'Boku and the Rat' trilogy (yeah, trilogy, heh heh!!)...  and then move on from there...

Thanks so much again for your help, Dan!

[Tuffty]

First book I read was A Wild Sheep Chase, and I think it's a good place to start. My favourite I think is Norwegian Wood, it's a romance novel which is somewhat of a departure for Murakami but still contains his trademark complexity and symbolism, so it isn't just another love story.