Not nuts about this, after over 350 pages and into the home stretch, that Murakami appears to explain all the goings on that up until this time, we are guessing and forming our own opinions about.
Starting with Chapter 25, (the odd numbers are within the past, I believe) and going through 27, and 28, the narrator finds out a great deal from the Professor who has embedded something in his brain specifically to test out a theory. The professor explains just about everything from his own beginnings with the System, through the narrator’s own purpose and into his future. It did clarify much to me, and yet, I’m not sure I was ever given a chance to reason it out had I wanted to.
Now, in Chapter 32, the narrator’s shadow explains what that world is all about and how it works. It’s just a little too pat and I’m surprised that Murakami didn’t unravel his wondrous tale a little at a time. Unless I missed it and these revelations that are obviously needed to understand where this story is going in the coming together of the two worlds of time are a gentle hand-up to those like me.
While I hesitate to come out and call it an infodump, in have the Professor in one story line and the shadow in the other explain everything to the narrator in a dialogue form, it is in effect explaining everything to the reader as well. It may be because I never got a chance to just read the whole thing through quickly (it took me months because of other obligations) though I did remember what was going on and didn’t have to back-read to refresh my mind (well, maybe once, when I got confused between the two librarians, one in each “world”).
Should be wrapping this up by tomorrow I hope.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology