Case study: Noboru Wataya of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Why We Hate Him:
1. the narrator and his wife (Noboru's sister) name their cat after him, and have a good laugh about it
2. he is accused of defiling a woman
3. he may have a thing for his dead sister
4. he has written a dull and obtuse book about economics
5. he has become famous, in a tv pundit kind of way
6. he is mean to our narrator
7. he is seen to wear green-tinted sunglasses indoors
I have never wished a minor fictional character so ill, so hats off to Haruki Murakami, who knows it's as much about the little details as the big things.
Additionally, I have never enjoyed a book so much where so little appears to be happening. Or really, where lots of things appear to be happening, but then you realize that it is a story about a man who barely leaves his house looking for a lost cat. Or is it?
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