The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1997)

The Short of It:

A wildly imaginative work. Quite possibly the most interesting literary experience I’ve had. Ever.

The Rest of It:

If I had to sum this book up with one sentence, I’d say this:

Nothing, is as it seems.

Toru Okada is a normal guy. But when his cat goes missing, and then his wife Kumiko follows shortly thereafter, what at first seems normal suddenly becomes surreal and odd. So odd, that Toru apends time in an abandoned well to sort it all out.

In the mean time, he meets a cast of very strange characters:

•May Kasahara – a young neighbor girl who thinks about death a lot. She has a very matter-of-fact way of talking and acts as a sounding board for Toru.

•Noboru Wataya – the brother of Kumiko. Toru cannot stand him as his political ideals differ from his. He’s also a bully when it comes to his sister Kumiko. The lost cat is also named after him, which is odd in and of itself given that Kumiko and Toru really do not like the guy.

•Lieutenant Mamiya – an officer who witnessed the brutal death of a another officer. He is scarred over that event and has spent his own time down in a well. He has been tasked with carrying out a request in a will which is what brings him to Toru.

•Malta Kano – acts as a medium. Kumiko hires her to help them find their cat. She sees things, but she’s not all that clear when she translates it to those who need the information.

•Creta Kano – Creta is Malta’s sister. She too, has a talent but her talent is unpracticed and involves inhabiting people’s minds. She is also called a “prostitute of the mind” and gets to know Toru quite well.

•Nutmeg Akasaka – the businesswoman who first sees Toru while observing people in the city. She is attracted to the blueblack mark on his face. A mark that her father also bore many years ago. Later, she makes him a proposition that he finds hard to refuse.

•Cinammon Akasaka – the son of Nutmeg. He does not speak but uses a strange form of sign language to communicate. He carries out the wishes of his mother but is exceptionally good at what he does and what he does involves looking out for Toru on many levels.

•The Wind-Up Bird – a bird that only certain characters hear. This bird makes a screeching noise and when Toru hears it, he is immediately reminded of a spring and how it needs to be wound in order to keep the world going. If you pay attention while reading, the appearance of the bird can clue you in to what is going on at that point in time.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to describe this book. The story is simple, but the things that happen within the story beg to be discussed. The personalities of the characters, their history and how they all play their own part in the story is what makes a Murakami book an “experience” more than just a good read. It’s walks a crazy fine line between what’s normal and what’s not and throws in bits and pieces to shake you up and to jolt you back into reality, or what you think is reality. It’s the type of book that will have you asking questions for days, but somehow Murakami manages to bring it all together by those last few pages. Not to say that your questions have been fully answered. No, can’t say that. But I can say that as a reader, I was satisfied when I turned that last page.

Murakami’s writing is very accessible and simple to follow. Most first-time readers feel intimidated by what they’ve heard about him, but the writing is not complex. The meaning behind what is written though, can boggle the mind, but not in a bad way. His books have a palate cleansing effect which I find very pleasing. He challenges you to think outside of the box and if you give in to it, usually you’re rewarded with a positive reading experience. Usually. There are those that are completely turned off by the oddness of it, and I understand that too. Murakami is not for everyone but what a reading experience it is!

Reading this book was like taking two Benadryls, drinking a couple glasses of wine and then having one heck of a strange dream afterward. You wake, but you don’t wake and you sort of like it that way.

As with his other novels, this book shares many of the same themes but mostly alienation and loneliness. There are some graphic depictions of sex and rape but not as much as some of his other novels. There is also a particularly gruesome act of violence but it’s brief and not drawn out so I found it tolerable although some of the other readers in the read-along found it hard to read.

Compared to his other books, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is probably one of my favorites. It’s right up there with Kafka on the Shore but I found it much easier to follow than Kafka. It’s long. Over 600 pages long but much of it reads very quickly. In the six weeks that we had to finish the book, I think most finished well before the deadline. However, it was maybe 50 pages too long. I understand that two chapters were removed from the English translation and that they had to do with Toru’s relationship with Creta. I know it would have made the book longer but I wish I had those chapters now.

If you are intrigued and want to give it a try, do so with an open mind and give yourself plenty of time to absorb what you’ve read. It also doesn’t hurt to take a week or two when done to just ponder the story. I found it very hard to focus on other books after finishing Wind-Up.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter. ( )

This was my fourth Murakami novel, and while I really loved it, Hardboiled Wonderland still remains my favorite. Although both novels are dreamlike and airy, Hardboiled benefited from a solid structure. Wind-up Bird Chronicle wanders on and on and on, gaining and losing characters without much explanation. As with all Murakami's novels, this book is not for anyone who requires their fiction to be grounded in reality. To get the most out of it, you really just have to be willing to follow it wherever it goes, analyzing what you can and accepting that half of it is just going to be a big question mark. ( )

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is my fourth Haruki Murakami novel, and it may be my last – at least for a while. There are wonderful rewards for the reader of Murakami, but these are often offset with frustration, or at least that is my experience. It was Kafka on the Shore that drew me into Murakami’s world of magical realism, and for all of its lack of resolution in some regards, remains still the most satisfying read and my favorite of the four. I followed it with his highly acclaimed Norwegian Wood, which frankly I found quite boring. My next was 1Q84, his giant overblown epic that succeeded in going nowhere for nine hundred pages.
The Wind-Bird Chronicle is gifted with superb writing – probably the best writing of the four I’ve read – as well as outstanding character creation, dramatic imagery, complex situations and a brilliant narrative structure . . . but still … but still the book leaves the reader on a literary limb that is the mother of all frustration. In fact, I have decided that reading Murakami is often like having really, really good sex for a very, very long time, without orgasm. The promise of that potential climax that could be the crescendo of the sex is ever dangled tantalizing before you, but it never arrives.
As in other novels, the male protagonist, Taru Okada, is a relatively complacent man who most often simply lets life happen to him. He rarely questions even the most dramatic turn of events cast in his path, and where obvious questions of reality and fantasy confront him, he simply dismisses these cavalierly as not worth additional contemplation. He is not the most passive of the Murakami males, but he certainly does not drive his destiny. And as in the other novels, the central male protagonist is the least interesting of all of the characters. Murakami typically positively shines in the female characters he brings to life, and Wind-Up is no exception: Creta Kano, her sister Malta Cano, the teenage vamp May Kasahara, and the mysterious “Nutmeg” are all terrific dramatic actresses that walk on the Murakami stage with big shoes. Unlike the other books, Wind-Up also features some larger-than-life male characters, including Lieutenant Mamiya, Boris the Manskinner, who is a creature of Mamiya’s own tales, and the slippery Ushikawa, who later reappears to meet his terrible demise in the alternate universe of 1Q84. There are actually many other characters, male and female, that populate the novel. Alas, dramatic situations are created with great skill, outstanding characters exploit these situations, and yet … and yet often nothing comes of the episode or series of episodes that contribute to the actual thread of the novel’s plot. Metaphor is one thing. Magic realism as an artifice is another. But the lack of a standard plot with some sense of resolution that serves as foundation to the whole can be maddening.
Most of the time, I feel like I’m driving through a maze on some very interesting avenues that just happen to turn to dead ends. I change course and it happens again, and again. And then, after much effort, I finally find my way out. When I do – on that last page – I have no idea how I got there or what I learned from the long ride, and I feel certain that if I turned around and drove back in I would be just as lost and frustrated by the dead ends as I was on the first trip through.
I’m not committing to never reading another Murakami novel, but I will say that if I do, I will wait a very, very long time. ( )

Why you should not name your cat -Noboru Wataya.

1)-The cat hates it, gets livid and disappears.
2)-Obscurity and grief numbs you over claustrophobic endurance. You rummage around for your precious in sweltering sun, places you do not know. You get anxious with every passing moment. Acquire a funny taste in your mouth that makes the coffee taste like sewage.
3)-You wander at the railway station counting all bald heads; clueless while gazing at every commuter.
4)-Listen attentively to horrified war stories as though they would bring you salvation from your immense suffrage.





Why is it crucial to name your cat-Noboru Wataya.

1)-The cat hates it, gets livid and disappears.
2)-You begin receiving anonymous sex calls.
3)-You meet the most peculiar and amusing creatures fascinating with their oddities.
4)-You startlingly receive keepsakes from your past social dos.
5)-Mysterious women nurture your psychedelic dreams on a regular basis giving you a ‘boner’ making you take cold showers several times during the day.
6)-Your desperation for the lost cat releases strong magnetic waves attracting females of all age group seducing your senses.
7)-You have wild sex in all its divinity.


Take your pick! Toru Okada did and it was compelling among his own idiosyncrasies.
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I really liked the "do you really want to hear this? It's a long story" aspects of this book, and the stories within the story. Definitely the most David Lynchian book I have ever read-gives you that special Black Lodge creeped out feeling. In this case with the added horrors of war.
But, yet again, I have to say I was waiting for the heart-stopping great little snippets that I found in Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore. They weren't here so much. This was way better than Hardboiled Wonderland, but just not as throbbingly wonderful as the other favorites. And yet the 600 pages flew by. Seriously. ( )