I remember an old Zen chestnut: "There's the thing and then there's the name for the thing, and that's one thing too many." And that's the problem at the heart of this exploration of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. My brush with Murakami has been brief, but memorable: the book of short stories "After the Quake." I remember the stories and I remember the hotel room I was in when I read them. So for my money anything that can nudge a reader toward the fiction of Murakami is to be encouraged. This is an earnest and serious effort to make you turn off the radio and pick up a Murakami book. However it runs the risk of ossifying what it's praising. One should be leery of all critics, especially literary ones who speak with the dry tone of expertise. But the mission here is a noble one. Will it move anyone toward Murakami or will it send them running for the hills? Depends on the listener. For me, if you're trying to decide if you should read Murakami, the only thing you need to know about him is who he has chosen to translate into Japanese: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver.