Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 21, 2011

Paul rated it:

I had been wondering where my cat was when the phone rang. It was a woman offering to have no strings sex with me. I made some non-committal remarks to her and put the receiver down. I hate those cold callers. I had nothing to do that day, or any other day, so I walked down the back alley and fell into a desultory conversation with a random 16 year old girl who had a wooden leg and a parrot on her shoulder. She suggested I help her make some easy money by counting bald people. That sounded abou More...

106 comments like (152 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2009

Ben rated it:

WATER IS GOOD!

You, the politician with the psychopath eyes on the T.V.! I hate you!

Russian scheming

Where the fuck is my cat?!!! And why did I name him after you Mr. Psychopath EYES!

War
Blood
Death

Zoo animals?

My dreams are wack, yo – but WAIT! Are they really dreams?! No way man, I totally did it with her for real.

Skinning people alive

Wacky woman with the Huge red hat, tell me! A More...

69 comments like (130 people liked it)

Jun 25, 2010

mp rated it:

A part of me wishes that I hadn't read it yet so that I could still read it for the first time and be mesmerized.

It is quiet difficult for me to describe what this book was like. It is surreal and psychedelic. It is mysterious, something out of this world. You just need to stop questioning things and let yourself get carried away. It begins with a seemingly ordinary day in the life of a very ordinary man. But things only gets strange and stranger from there - dreams spill into realit More...

21 comments like (69 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Kelly rated it:

I absolutely adored the book upon starting out. It is exquisitely crafted, with each seemingly casual word chosen to illustrate the world into which we have entered. It is a lonely world full of half finished stories, abrupt departures, missed connections and deep silences. "Poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird," lives on an alley with no exits, in a borrowed life that he could never afford to live without the kindness of his uncle. He's just quit his job, as he has no idea of where to go with his li More...

31 comments like (42 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Erika Jo rated it:

The book jacket recommends The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as "dreamlike and compelling" which I initially understood as cliche review talk. But several hundreds of pages in, I realized I really did felt compelled to read it, compelled during work, compelled on the subway, compelled during any free moment at home.

As a Chronicle, and a meta-aware one at that, part of the compulsion results from not knowing what the hell will happen next. In three "books", a chronologic More...

1 comment like (25 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2011

Dan rated it:

Jobless, Toru Okada spends most of his days searching for his missing cat. Until his wife goes missing as well. Why did she leave? Did she ever love him? And can Toru navigate an ocean of strangeness to get her back?

Back when I first joined Goodreads, one of the first things I noticed was how a novel I'd never heard of, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, got so much praise from Goodreaders. Was it hype? Or worse, was it just hipster bullshit? You know what I'm talking about. "I More...

11 comments like (31 people liked it)

Jun 02, 2011

Ian rated it:

Original Review: February 22, 2011

Sins of Fascination

Pending a more formal review, here is a song that I pieced together by way of dedication to the book and Paul Bryant's excellent parody on GR.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/122...
The song careers all over the surface of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" and "Paperback Writer", so I probably owe them and you an apology, but it seemed like an apt way to celebrate Murakami at the time.
More...

7 comments like (20 people liked it)

Aug 13, 2008

Valerie rated it:

When I tried to write a review of this book, it came out sounding like this:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a beautifully written, complexly woven book that takes us into the life of Toru Okada, who quit his ordinary job and seems to be waiting to see where his life will take him next. However, a series of events occurs that turns his life upside-down, and although he continues to let events unfold around him, what develops thereafter is anything but ordinary.

Beautifully wr More...

24 comments like (19 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2007

Dave rated it:

So before long, you find yourself 340 pages into this book, and you have no idea what's happening.. Rather, you understand all you have read to this point, but still can't determine the direction Murakami is taking you in.

Still, the book is compelling. You can't seem to put it down. Meanwhile it begins to invade your dreams.. in much the same manner that Toru's (the main character) dreams are invaded. You start having dreams about strange women and empty wells.

So c More...

7 comments like (28 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2012

Kevin rated it:

The first 300 pages was really good, but from then it turned noway to the end I had no idea what any of it really meant.

This book is about a married couple in their early 30s, in which it focuses on the husband. It deals with their day to day life with the main character meeting some strange characters. Then one day out of nowhere his wife leaves him. Through out the novel, it gives the background story to the characters.

4 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2008

Imogen rated it:

Y'know what? I give up. I'm never going to finish this. I don't think Murakami's a hack, and I know that everybody except me thinks he's a genius, and I also understand- or, more specifically, have had it angrily explained to me- that my dislike for Murakami has to do with me being an American asshole who can't see through her own cultural imperialism enough to appreciate the way Japanese people like Murakami write novels. I acknowledge all these things.

But at the same time, nothing More...

23 comments like (46 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2008

Sandi rated it:

I’ve heard so much hyperbole about this book and this author that I was expecting it to be mediocre. However, “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami actually lived up to the praise that’s been heaped upon it. It absolutely falls into the category of Literature with a capital “L”.

If there isn’t a literary category called “Japanese Gothic Surrealism,” then Murakami has invented it. I think one could spend months pulling apart and analyzing this novel. It has so much symb More...

4 comments like (19 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2011

Lou rated it:

Great read enjoyable and easy to read this was my first Murakami novel. He writes of contemporary Japan,urban alienation and journeys of self-discovery. In this book he combines recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work. I love his prose, makes you thinking deeply into its meanings and i think many readers will grasp different understandings of what he means but thats the beauty of his work this is truly a monumental work of fic More...

6 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Yulia rated it:

From my comments on Constant Reader:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was actually written while Murakami was a writer-in-residence at Harvard, where his translator also worked conveniently. According to an interview with Jay Rubin, as soon as Murakami would finish a section, he would give it to Rubin to translate and Rubin sometimes offered his own advice and critiques (he didn't care for the Kano sisters).

After finding out the book had been edited for the English edition, I we More...

0 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Chris rated it:

This book is impossible to describe, except in perhaps in some abstract generalities: unsettlingly surreal, disturbingly violent, fantastically illogical. One part Kafka, two parts David Lynch's "Lost Highway," this book twists and turns with the surreal logic of a nightmare, probing the fluid and sometimes random nature of identity, relationships, and personal crisis. It isn't modernist or stream-of-conscious, however, so while a logical sequence of events refuses to gel, that doesn More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Michael rated it:

I don't have the faintest idea how to review this book properly, a fact that will surely deny me points on GR. Inevitably, I want to compare it to Kafka on the Shore, which I found more affecting but equally well-written. The story is, or should have been, one great cathartic journey; the ending was not what I expected or was looking for, though. Murakami is a wonderful storyteller, and every page is rich with theme, subtheme, and depth. He is often accused of being too sentimental, but I don't More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2008

Matt rated it:

Throughout reading this book, I kept coming back to an idea that I have been toying with for awhile. Please note that the experimental group here consists mainly of my wife and myself and a few random observations, so massive sampling error may be afoot. I'm also sure that I am not the originator of this line of thought, but I have not encountered it elsewhere as of yet.

***Warning! Broad, sweeping generalizations after the jump***

When it comes to literature and movies, ma More...

8 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 10, 2008

Seth rated it:

Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is actually probably the best novel I've read in a long time. Granted, many of the novels I've read over the last two years have not been spectacular. There was The Lovely Bones. And then The Ass and the Angel. And then His Dark Materials. And others, none of which I would recommend spending any time with.

Wind-Up Bird on the other hand was worth every moment spent burning through its 610 pages. It was mysterious, absorbing, and informative. Murak More...

2 comments like (17 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2008

B rated it:

This novel took me for freaking ever to read. I think I started it in August? Yeah. I just finished it. Mostly because much of the book is about dreams, I think. It made me sleepy. Not that it was poorly written, not at all. The dreams were just so mysterious and sensual that it made me want to try too.

Mostly what I loved about this book was the theme that very small acquaintances can have an impact on who you are as a person, on your future. I like that. Something about kno More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

August rated it:

I took this book on a loner road trip with me through the Desert Southwest. I read it going through Southern Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona. This was the perfect landscape for me to be with this book.

I'm not going to be able to begin describing details of the book itself. It is too full, too dreamlike, too much a world of strange happenings. I can say that it is brilliant in its creativity. I felt as if I were a fly on the wall of someone's strange dream where I witnessed both great More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2011

Kristin rated it:

How can I put into words the magnificence of this book?! I CAN'T! But I'll tell you what, I'm gonna find an old abandoned well and crawl to the bottom, and then I'm gonna sit there for three days with nothing to eat and only water to drink and all I'm gonna do is think about The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and how it is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read, how I want to read it again right now, how it moved me to tears on numerous occasions, how it's evocative prose sucked me in and hel More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2011

Nick rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 22, 2008

Marco rated it:

Prior to reading this book I had fallen down in my regular reading. Where I was once reading at least one, but usually more books a week, I was reading a book maybe every 7 or 8 months and dreadfully slowly. Concurrent to the start of me reading this, I had just gone through a break up and things just generally felt like they were slowly beginning to come apart at the seams wherever I cast my gaze.

That's what I brought to the book. What the book brought to me was a similar experience More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2009

Sally rated it:

I remember purchasing this book in about 2004. I didn't remember that I'd started reading it, but here it is, I had.
Passages are vaguely familiar, but in the nicest, misty dream sort of way possible.

Here is why I love Murakami: The passage on ironing shirts put me in the mood to iron some shirts.

Working my way through, about 200 pages in now. Feel like I fall asleep and have a really intense dream every time I sit down to read. Falling in love with th More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2010

Mariel rated it:

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle gave my brother nightmares. I think it gave me everlasting daymares, and an incurable restless feeling. Something I love about Murakami is the you-can-tell-them-anything voice of the narrator. I wish I had that. Well, my twin and brother are both Murakami fans and my friends too. It's not like I'll get the total blank lamp post look if I ever find the right words to say (hopefully...). Um, maybe I mean it's that something missing in me I miss. I feel restless 'cause I More...

6 comments like (16 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2009

Julie rated it:

Uh, Wow.

This book is...
Well it is really hard to explain what this book is like.
I have compared it to a David Lynch movie, but it's not exactly like that really-- it's just that there is a sense of strangeness like you are being told a story out of order and you have to put the puzzle pieces together to understand it.
He is an incredible writer, and the imagery alone is just awesome.

This is certainly a book that grabs you and takes you along for the ride More...

8 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2008

Jason rated it:

this book is VERY weird...

one thing that's occurred to me is the theme of the incertitude of accurate communication between human beings...
the telephone becomes a major symbol here...
at the time in which the novel is set, the early 80's, the telephone represented an insoluble mystery...
who is it we are really talking to when the telephone rings and we pick up the receiver?...
how do we know for certain they're who they say they are?...how do we know what they t More...

10 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Zinna rated it:

This book took me FOREVER to read! Sure it's a long book but usually I dust off a compelling 600 pages in a few weeks, as opposed to six months.

It's hard for me to explain how I feel about this book because parts of it were so different from other parts. The book starts talking about one thing (the relationship between a unemployed man and his wife who suddenly disappears) then takes off in a completely unexpected direction and just when you think you've settled somewhere solid in th More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 10, 2007

Kelly rated it:

Murakami is a master of the "series of bizarre events unraveling upon an average Joe" story, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of his most complex tales. Each chapter is beautiful, strange, and engaging, fueling the imagination and stirring the curiosity.

For Toru Okada, life has been mostly simple and convenient. But he begins to receive a series of suggestive phone calls from a stranger. Then his wife leaves him, and things become more random and unpredictable, particu More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

I hated this book, but then I also loved parts of it. To be blunt, it was an extremely frustrating read. At about page 400 I hit a wall--perhaps a well wall--and I had no desire to complete Murakami's opus. But after I pushed past that part, the book ramped up nicely at the end. If I had been his editor, I would have liked to cut a good 200 pages. Still, Murakami's famously detached characters were utterly compelling. The main character's passivity hit a chord of authenticity for me. What happe More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

reviews