Pinball, 1973 (1983)

I did end up liking Pinball a lot more, but these two are connected and I believe there are four in total Murakami works that follow the unnamed narrator of these two novels as well as his friend, who is just this guy known as the Rat.

i briefly mentioned before the fact that i don't really like murakami's first two novellas his first two published works which are available in translation one is called hear the wind sing and the other is called pinball 1977