Murakami is more magic realism than scifi, so if you're looking for explanations for the weird happenings in his books you often end up out of luck

Agreed. Murakami introduces all sorts of weird / surrealistic / magical elements into stories, but there's rarely if ever any attempt to explain them. They're just part of the fabric of the story.

Magic realism is kind of weird genre. Sort of "in between" in that "magic shit happens, but in our ordinary world, not a world where magic shit happens". That is, magic happens, but not in a Harry Potter'ish or Tolkein'ish world where magic is explicitly part of the world.

All of that said, I love Murakami. Need to finish reading the rest of his novels one of these days.

I remember a feeling of being dreaming while reading the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The plot have the same logic than dreams.

It's certainly not science fiction but I loved it.