..."Of course, we did not have relations in reality. When you ejaculated, it was not into me, physically, but in your own consciousness. Do you see ? It was a fabricated consciousness. Still, the two of us share the consciousness of having had relations with each other." - "What's the point of doing something like that ?" - "To know," she said. "To know more-and more deeply." ...I released a sigh. This was crazy. But she had been describing the scene of my dream with incredible accurazy. ... "You see, Mr.Okada, I am a prostitute. I used to be a prostitute of the flesh, but now I am a prostitute of the mind. Things pass through me."

What is going on in our mind is part of the collective (un-)consciousness. That is what we are experiencing also with Cybersex and Internet-Chat: having sensations and emotions, being close to totally unknown persons only through the power of our own imagination, not thinking how dangerous this instantaneous vicinity can be for our mind and soul. Murakami tells us in his (innocent ?) thrilling way of some secrets of (Jungian) psychology which are still not understood by most of us - i really wonder how much aware he is about what he is writing. At least it seems that he has gone through everything he writes (like in "Norweggian wood" too). Murakami teaches us into which direction the human mind is going, how we are strongly connected to certain persons, mostly without knowing it. And, just by the way, he shows us also how one can remain a nice guy with all these mental atrocities attacking us. For most his books are kind of fantastic, maybe curious. But (not so?) few of us are experiencing these mind-problems already. What takes place in our mind IS real or at least ONE reality which is not always connected with outside-reality but which we cannot ignore much longer. Unnecessary to say that he is one of the very few contemporary authors i admire.