I love the idea of retrocausality – the idea that actions in the future influence outcomes in the past. Or, rather, I’m interested in the idea of ripples across time. Like this – something in the future hits the water, and I feel the ripples now, and I felt it when I was 21, and 13, and 7. In other words, some major events impact us throughout our experience of time in ways we don’t understand, both forward and backward. And our ripples mingle with ripples in others’ lives, as well. 
Murakami plays around with similar ideas in his personal bestseller, Norwegian Wood. In the beginning of this book, the titular Beatles song starts playing over airplane speakers as the plane lands in Hamburg. The melody smacks the protagonist, Toru Watanabe, so hard that he has to lean forward and hold his head – a flight attendant thinks he is sick. It’s not the airplane’s descent that hits him – it’s the ripple of events tied to the song.
Watanabe is taken back to his college days, in 1960s Tokyo. He is surrounded by student revolts of the time, but moreso by his feeling out of time and place. He splits his free time between two young women – the melancholic Naoko (the girlfriend of his childhood best friend) and the free-spirited Midori, an acquaintance from his liberal arts courses.
Warning – this is a rather unflinching coming-of-age story. Adult themes of sex, desire, death, suicide, authenticity, and meaning abound. However, everything feels like a dream. That may make some of the passages easier or more difficult to stomach, depending on how that kind of writing hits you.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what Murakami was trying to point out to the reader with his frequent use of cycles, the relationship of the mind and the body, and whether, as one character guesses, an open heart is a prerequisite for healing.
I don’t know that Murakami is handing down a lesson so much as helping the reader accept ambiguity and that we’re forever tied to certain events and people.