murakami ryuu is a show off.

the fucker uses at least one kanji that doesn't seem to appear in modern dictionaries, and about 30 that aren't in standard use in the first 15 pages of 限りなく透明に近いブルー. He also almost always uses the uncommon alternative kanji at almost every possibility. And he's got something against furigana.

I picked up this book to read as an little bit of a break from murakami haruki who can be awfully heavy, and slow, but reading those first 15 pages or m ryuu took me easily twice as long as 30 pages of m haruki, who is no slouch in the vocabulary department.
This book being "shocking" drug fiction from 1978 also means it's kind of robbed of it's best selling point. needless to say, I'm not enjoying it so far.