Needle Sharing

So I was sitting in a comfy green chair at the local tattoo parlor, sipping some rather weak coffee and reading South of the Border, West of the Sun, a book by, you guessed it, Haruki Murakami. Enter a young man with (what I suppose was) his girlfriend, who starts asking the tattooeress about getting a tattoo. His plan is to buy a needle for the tattoo machine, which he actually says he will share with some other guy for cost reasons, and they will both be tattooed by a third friend. I cannot for the life of me understand why he a) thinks needle sharing is a good way to save money and b) why a tattooer would sell just a needle to someone, and especially someone who sort of plans on getting diseases. It was weird.

But, I am happy to inform you that South of the Border, West of the Sun is, hitherto, the best Murakami book I have read, save for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This means that it is also one of the best books I have ever read. I am so happy to have found an author who is so good that almost all of his books leave me awestruck. I hardly want to read any further, fearing this perfect creation will be ruined somewhere towards the end.