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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle #1-3)

by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator)

4.19 of 5 stars 4.19 · rating details · 72,353 ratings · 5,753 reviews

Toru Okada is going through a difficult time. He is without a job, his cat has disappeared, and his wife is behaving strangely. Into this unbalanced world comes a variety of curious characters, a young girl sunbathing in a nearby garden; sisters who are very peculiar indeed; an old war veteran with a violent, disturbing story. Okada retreats to a deep well in a nearby hous...more

Paperback, 607 pages

Published September 1st 1998 by Vintage (first published 1994)

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Nov 23, 2012 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

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 about...more 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 about as good as anything else to me, after all, as I have already explained, i had nothing to do. At all. And I was doing it. It was kind of a cool period in my life when i wasn't really doing anything. I didn't have a job, I had become estranged from my family and for some reason I could not quite put my finger on, i had no friends. So we counted the bald people for a while and then we stopped. We went back home, or should i say, she went back to her home, and I, of course, went back to mine, where I prepared a simple evening meal consisting of grated cucumber, a little olive oil, half a smoked mackerel and a pot of basil. I didn't put the tv on because I didn't have a tv because if i had had a tv i might have switched it on and seen something on it that was actually interesting. Then the cold calling sex woman rang again and this time she said that she couldn't quite tell me how she knew this but she knew something was going to happen to me but she did not say when it would. I decided to rehang the curtains in the front room. But not right away. Maybe later. I picked up the novel I was reading. It was a long one by a very modish Japanese writer called Haruki Murakami. It was about this English guy called Paul Bryant. He was kind of dull but all these weird unexplained things kept happening like he was a magnet for all the weirdness around. I don't know how to explain it. Neither did he. Neither did Haruki Marukami. I read for an hour and found I was on page 303, which in my paperback edition, was the exact centre point of the novel. I put it down. I had a feeling that in this novel things would continue to happen but the things would all be made of blancmange, a tasteless gooey substance which looks a little like wallpaper paste but isn't. And the people in the novel would all be not really real but also not really not real, if you know what I mean. My arm felt slightly tired holding the book. I shifted to a different reading posture on my couch but it did not help. The strength went out of my arm. I do not know why. As you may have noticed, I do not know anything at all. I struggle to recall my name on most days. The novel fell from my hand. I had the feeling I would never pick it up again. I did not know why I had that feeling, but I was pretty sure that I had it at the time I was having it. Although later, I was almost sure I had no memory of it. When I looked up a completely naked woman was sitting at the table eating a slice of thinly buttered toast. I asked her who she was and she said she was not at that point in a position to be able to divulge that information. She asked if she could borrow my car. I explained it had been taken by my wife who had left me two weeks ago. This did not seem to phase her. I noticed that her body was almost the same as that of my wife. She had two breasts, two nipples, and although the table was obscuring the lower parts of her anatomy I was sure that the rest of her was also not dissimilar. She consumed three pieces of toast and told me in a cool voice that I would never see my cat again except possibly in a place that began with the letter H or has a H in the name somewhere. She borrowed my wife's smart summer coat and a pair of her stilettos and left after about 15 minutes. It began to rain but I did not notice. I thought about paying my electricity bill.

(less)

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Sep 25, 2012 Megha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviews, kickass

A part of me wishes that I hadn't read it yet so 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 reality, lines between...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, to-re-read-soon, exert-yourself, mura-karmic-wonder-land, to-read-soon, nippon

Original Review: February 22, 2011

Songs of Fascination

Murakami sings to me of fascination. I still haven't worked out why.

I could analyse the sensation until it died on the operating table.

Or I could focus on just keeping the sensation alive.

Or, somewhere in between, I could speculate that it's because Murakami sits over the top of modern culture like a thin gossamer web, intersecting with and touching everything ever so lightly, subtly expropriating what he needs, bringing it back to his writer...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, owned, 20th-century-postwar-to-late

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 life, but is...more 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 life, but is dissatisfied with its current course. He lives with a wife that he never seems to really speak to, in a routine existence in which she is often late or absent, or spends her time repressing everything she chooses to say to him. Murakami meticulously illustrates this quietly painful existence in all of Mr. Wind-Up Bird's movements, whether it is missed phone calls, a wasted dinner, or a frozen statue of a bird never able to take flight. This sort of language kept me going throughout the book even when I lost my patience with other things.

Mr. Wind-Up Bird's relationship with May Kashara was my favorite part of the book. She is something of a wise child character, able to distill what Murakami is only hinting at into a more obvious, if odd and seemingly quaint statement. She is a wonderful character who brings light and movement to the pages, and pushes the plot along, if only in Mr. Wind-Up Bird's head. I kept looking ahead, if only to find out how long it was until she appeared again.

What I did not like? The endless repetition of the spiritual mumbo-jumbo, of the prophets who "just know," when something is going to happen, of the endless discussion of the "flow," and various other points of odd zen claptrap that really pushed me out of the story, and the reader entirely out of the reality. I think a part of the book's charm is that it hovers so close around the edges of reality, and gradually, this book just seemed to leave that behind. I appreciated the message of a bundle of stories all being woven together, stories that stop and start as people pass through them, are read and discarded as they are of use. But this went far beyond the borders of surreality into quite a confusing fog. Perhaps I missed something, but it became very difficult to push myself through this seemingly unrelated part. That entire middle section with the extended stories of Cinammon and Nutmeg, and the increasing weirdness of Creta Kano, the side stories of Lieutenant Mamiya, etc... I lost patience with the book and almost gave up several times, because that's how I thought the rest of the book would be. The introduction of random characters and tales that are really not material to the plot or necessary to the points that Murakami is making.

Thankfully, the tale wound back down into a more manageable area towards the end. I'm glad I finished it, if only to see the end of May Kashara.

I wish I had loved this more consistently that it turned out that I did. I wish I could give it 3.5 stars. I'm sticking with the definition of the stars in terms of "liked it," or "loved it." I was somewhere schizophrenically in between depending on the section of the book.(less)

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Feb 22, 2012 Shan Jago rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Creeeak.

http://youtu.be/igLBmYY7rpo

“Tell me,” she said at last, “do you like cats?”

Murakami. Murakami. Murakami. Say it a few times. You’ll like it.

“What position do you think my legs are in? My right knee is up, and my left leg is open just enough. Say, ten-oh-five on the clock.”

“When the phone rang I was in the kitchen boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for making pasta.”

No,...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone open to the odd. Those that can handle mixed, random plots

Shelves: favorites, good-fiction, read-in-2009, war, like-magic, romantic-love-and-hate, transformative-experience

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! Are you a psychic OR ARE YOU NOT?!

What a cool walkway between the HOUSES!

telephonetelephoneRing, Ring, Ring: Hellloooo --...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Anthony Vacca rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translation, my-own-personal-jukebox, convenient-hip-lit

Consider this bottle of Cutty Sark:

description

If you have read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, or have read other Haruki Murakami novels, then most likely this will be an image that you remember. I know it certainly left an impression on me as well as the several of my friends who have read this book. In fact, it was my roommate’s girlfriend who bought this bottle of very good scotch whiskey and was kind enough to let me have a glass or two. I even texted this picture to a friend of mine who had also read the...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Seth Hahne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone smarter than a bag of hammers

Shelves: bookclub

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. Murakami writes i...more

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Oct 28, 2010 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: I forgot

Recommended to Mariel by: the unbearable restlessness of being

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 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 can't ever get it. It's a struggle to keep my face pointed inward sometimes, and be open and honest and all that jive. I love these kinds of stories 'cause that's what the characters are doing. I hold my breath and try not to lose that thread. I swear, these are the only times I even come close.

This book haunts me. The prostitutes who do nothing but sleep next to their clients. Wow, that's pretty lonely. I'm transgressing now and am going to bring up other stories. Digressing, definitely. (Regressing?) I like the Regina Spektor song about rubbing up against strangers in crowds to feel some contact. Or the Judi Dench character in Notes on a Scandal who is so starved for another human's touch that accidentally brushing her hands with the vet's is orgasmic (don't like that movie, though. Too possessive and that's foriegn I-don't-wanna-visit-territory). I'm not a physically affectionate person (it took long conditioning to get over being just the opposite) and I'd see/read these stories and feel fascinated like a stranger in a strange land (seriously, mouth hung open so the flies could come flying in). The sleeping next to someone I get. What if you die in your sleep and die alone? Getting into the same breathing patterns is very intimate. Yeah, I can get into a lot of stuff in that vein...

Toru's wife and her terrifying brother. Yeah, there's nightmare material ripe for the sandman plucking in here...

Their marriage falling apart tore me apart. Really, it's not like I'm a little kid and they are my parents. No, but you were supposed to be together and with me FOREVER! The knowing what you know and then finding out that was not the same thing other people knew at all, what you were supposed to have known together (ugh relationships). It's comforting and horrifying at the same time, the no-man's island of self.

I loved not being alone while asking these kinds of questions with the answers you know are in there somewhere if you could only be quiet long enough to hear them. Yeah, the story isn't linear. But who thinks and feels and asks anything in a straight answer?

P.s. Radiohead were influenced by this novel for their music. I read once that Murakami got into Radiohead and was influenced by them (Kafka on the Shore? Maybe?).

P.s.s. Murakami was influenced by Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Sharing stuff like that makes me feel happy. Like a shared experience. (Since I wasn't around for Woodstock or the Crucifixion. The cat was probably there for both parties, rubbing against everyone's legs for some animal contact.)(less)

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Jul 10, 2007 Erika Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 chronological recording of daily events sli...more 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 chronological recording of daily events slips into an out-of-order, out-of-narrator's-field-of-vision controlled orgy. The book moves, notoriously, from banal episodes of cooking pasta, searching for a lost cat and dull domestic chats to unsyncopated sliced plot randomness - anonymous sex-calls (desire), visits from Manchurian veterans (memory), the disappearance of the protagonist's wife and subsequent appearance of at least five memorable, distinct, bizarre characters - a "cheerfully morbid" teenaged girl, a set of sensual psychic sisters, and a mother-son team of healers, one of whom does not speak a word - to finally, battling mythical-real creations, dreamt lucidly in a haunted-comforting well (or are they?). The narrative tone remains tranquil, logical and sound throughout.

This sort of magical realism reminded me of Marquez, but the novel has a distinctly Japanese tone. Descriptions of environment (the cawing of the wind-up bird) underlines action and pivotal points reflect the imperialist (and defeated) political history unique to Japan, from the bombing of Nagasaki to the forgotten, crushing campaign in mainlain China and Mongolia against Soviet forces. What is the fate of a country? What is the fate of a man? What is the range of this book sitting placidly in your hand?

In this case, a likeable thirty year old Everyman (as he's been cast), one Toru Okado with an almost freakish amptitude for following strange requests from his wife, and his new compatriots, is just trying to find a little direction after quitting his lame paralegal job. Sometimes a person needs to slow down entirely to see where to go. I could be convinced of the Buddhist undertones of this notion, although I must say, I would really love to read a critical analysis which could contextualize and develop these piercing hints, dropped like so many breadcrumbs. I don't know, maybe Toru Okado should tell his story in a novel, etc.

Muraki develops memorable characters, to say the least. Though the book is written in first person (or maybe because of it), others' motivations are almost never fleshed out, are almost crap shoots in a dramatic, unseen fate. Everyone is imbued with a sense of mystery. The "dreamlike" component of the book plays out on the streets this way. I'm having a hard time articulating the strength of the characterization, especially when I must point out the similarities between some, purposely meshing into another, a most enchanting connection between the young man who does not speak and the narrator.

There were slow parts, but as in The Name of the Rose, these philosophic, or mostly in this case, historical digressions create a constellation of meaning. As the main character in the book, the reader is faced with piecing together disparate symbols for an underlying satisfying, if somewhat frustrating experience. I've read a few reviews after I turned the last page (still in a dreamline cogitation for closure) which criticize Murakami for dropping the ball at the end, for not fully "wrapping up" the loose ends, for even conning the reader. I think it presses us to find our own meaning, to be wrapped in the enigma of the everyday we are presented when we put the book down, when we return to the fiction of reality as we know it. (less)

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Jul 08, 2012 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars

A 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 f...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Samadrita rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: YOU

Shelves: cherished, masterpieces, melancholia, slice-of-life, historical, philosophical, asian-literature, magical-realism-surrealism, psychological, modern-classics, world-war-ii, re-readable, japan, gory-book-is-gory, awesomesauce, 1001-and-more, disturbia

If I were to use only one word to describe this book, I would type the word 'brilliant' a million times with each letter in CAPITALS and fill up the entire word length of this particular space.

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle in all its sensitivity, emotional depth and keen understanding of the complications of the human mind is a stellar work of literature and a tour de force in itself. I cannot go ahead and say it is Murakami's magnum opus (it is not his longest novel), since I haven't finished with...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Dan Schwent rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

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 only read novels that ha...more 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 only read novels that have been translated from foreign languages. Now let's go watch a foreign film and pretend to understand it."

At the insistence of a Goodreads compadre who seems to have deleted his account since I bought this, I decided to plunk down my money and give it a shot. What did I think? I dug it but don't start fitting me for skinny jeans and a distressed faux-vintage t-shirt quite yet.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a very breezy read, surprisingly so since it was translated from Japanese. It tells the story of Toru Okada's disintegrating life, from his quitting his job at the law firm, to the family cat, Noboru Wataya, named after his wife's brother, going missing, to his wife Kumiko disappearing one morning. From there, things get stranger by the minute. Toru gets entangled with a sort of psychic therapist, Malta Kano, and her sister Creta, as well as striking up an unusual friendship with the unusual girl next door, May Kasahara. And that's before the really weird things start happening.

Weird books are my bread and butter so the weirdness didn't impede my enjoyment one iota. A lot of crazy things happened and the book held my interest the entire time. The writing is wonderful. I felt Toru's emotions as he felt them and I found his reactions to be really believable. When I read Kumiko's letter about why she left, I felt as betrayed as Toru must have felt.

Like I said, I dug it but I didn't love it. There were a lot of weird things happening and a lot of it was never resolved. While I enjoyed the WWII digressions, they felt unnecessary to me. I guess my main beef was that I didn't understand what all the hype was about. Sure, it's very well written but it doesn't have a lot of substance to it, not for being 600 pages long. It reminds me of Douglas Coupland and/or Neal Stephenson once they had achieved the editorial freedom to write whatever they wanted to. Not once did I contemplate taking days off work just to read it, nor did I feel like it was a life changing event.

That's about all I can articulate about The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at this time. Good, not great. Not as pants-shittingly awesome as I've been lead to believe. Definitely still worth a read, though.(less)

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Aug 13, 2008 Valerie rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 written? Complexly woven?...more 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 written? Complexly woven? Give me a break. I don't know why it was coming out like that. I mean: turns his life upside-down? If I came across this review, I'd be rolling my eyes.

But for some reason, I found this review to be very difficult to write. First, I can't summarize the story. It is beautiful, and it is complex, but I'm going to leave the explanation of the plot to the little GoodReads button that you can click up next to the book. I just don't have the hours that it would take in this instance for me personally to recreate that. It's just so long and involved that it's hard to condense.

I felt that reading the chronicle puts the reader in Toru's shoes, as many of the more surreal events force you to suspend disbelief and simply get carried along by the story. You have to be able to go with the flow to enjoy this book. Many colorful and eccentric characters are introduced, advancing the narrative with their own tales and adding a lot of subplots. It seems like it could become too much to keep track of, but each one was so well-crafted that they drew me in and kept me interested. I found many of the subplots (and secondary characters) to be far more interesting than Toru's own story.

My only complaint with this book is that I felt like it left many of those stories hanging or forgotten. I partially attribute this to the surreal nature of the book - I didn't really expect everything to be revealed - but also to the fact that it was simply too much to wrap up. At a certain point toward the end of the book, I found myself doing a lot of: but hey, whatever happened to so-and-so? And what about this part of the book that was so important at the time, but then just stopped being discussed? And what about...? The sum of all the parts of the books didn't completely add up for me.

But this is the kind of book that when you finish, you want to discuss it with someone, compare notes, and ask questions. I like it because not only did I enjoy reading it, but it also made me want to pursue those questions further. It's not necessarily a hard book to read, but it's definitely a lot to wrap your head around.

I'd give it three-and-a-half stars if I could, but I can't, so I'm going with: three.(less)

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Sep 18, 2007 Dave rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 cracking into "Book Three", I'...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Kevin Xu rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: re-read

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.

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Dec 06, 2008 Imogen rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 about this w...more

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Aug 06, 2008 Sandi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008, literature

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 symbolism and so many...more

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May 19, 2013 Marvin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don'

...more

“Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things." ― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up BirdChronicle

If After Dark was a Vermeer miniature and Kafka on The Shore was a Dali surrealist landscape, then The Wind-up Bird Chronicle would be Picasso's Guernica. They do have some things in common. Both are large epic works. Both have tragic historic events as the center of the work; The bombing of Guernica in Spain for Picasso and The invasion of Manchuria by the Japanese, and its aftermath, for Murakami. And finally, both explore the nature of evil as a major theme. Murakami is also exploring the role of fate and the delicate and unpredictable interaction that people, even total strangers, play in our life. At least that is my interpretation. This epic novel by Murakami is opened to many interpretations as it is an odd and fantastical mixture of strange characters and open-ended events that are not necessarily tied together. In fact, the novel may best be read for the marvelous language and the flowing imagery rather than any strict interpretation. The story starts with a simple idea of a man who is looking for his cat, his wife, and the meaning to his own not-so-enviable existence. yet quickly evolves into a crowd of odd characters who have stories of their own to tell. These tales seem random but are linked together, if oh so precariously. It's best to "go with the flow" and enjoy the ride. But for me, it all made sense at the end in a very satisfying way.However, as much as I loved it, I didn't become immersed with the characters as much as I did in Kafka by The Shore. I felt a bit of an outside observer, as in "Kafka" I really felt touched by the protagonists. So "Kafka" still remains my favorite Murakami novel. However The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is certainly a literary masterpiece in any definition of the term.(less)

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Sep 23, 2008 Yulia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: by-and-of-japan, read-to-me-by-frank

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 went on a mini wild sheep...more 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 went on a mini wild sheep chase (short of learning Japanese and reading the original myself) to find out what passages or details had been censored. Perhaps a scene between Toru and May unfit for Americans? But after finding an interview with Jay Rubin, I learned that the answer is much less salacious: Rubin says it was merely a matter of redundant passages that he removed to tighten the text (Japanese writers rarely undergo the editing process that American publishers require), not an issue of specific content that was inappropriate.

It'll come as no surprise for those who have started this tome that Murakami writes without having laid out a plot first and just goes where his imagination takes him. This sometimes makes for frustrating passages, but it also leads his readers into literal and figurative terrains they wouldn't otherwise come across.

And ultimately, it's the quirky beauty of his details and similes that have always made him such a joy to read: for example, the utterly identifiable and senseless argument between Toru and his wife about blue tissues and patterned toilet paper, or the debate with May Kasahara about why six fingers is any less irrelevant than four breasts on a woman.

As I suggested in the regular CR thread, Murakami raises more questions than he answers in his books and often presents us with mysteries that simply can't be solved.

Another thing that struck me when I first read Wind-Up Bird was how May's parents and Toru weren't very surprised by her simply not going to school. But in a society where about 1% of students do just the same, stop attending classes; in a country that mastered the art of cram schools to prepare students for entrance exams into more challenging schools and high schoolers for entrance exams into better colleges, where admission to an elite college is meant to set you on the right track for getting a career; and where ruthless bullying is sanctioned by teachers and parents as part of the trials of coming-of-age, it becomes less surprising that some students simply opt out of the school system. It's become an increasing phenomenon, even an epidemic, in Japan, termed hikikomori, where kids and adults refuse to leave their room and are simply left food and/or an allowance by their helpless and sometimes abused parents (in Japan, domestic violence refers usually to kids beating their parents). Obviously, as she left her room and spoke easily with Toru, May wasn't a hikikomori, who are often male, but it did explain in part the seeming normalcy and comfort with her not going to school.

It occurred to me only a last week that perhaps it was Toru himself who best embodied the hikikomori mindset, not only in leaving his job, but in his long seclusion to and meditation at the bottom of the well. That made it more understandable, to me at least, why Murakami might have made his protagonist refuse to act for so long: however frustrating it was to read and endure with him, it may have been psychologically necessary for him to shut himself off from the world.

Another CR member made a good point about the cultural differences in our Western notion of being active and the Buddhist notion of flow. I do know Toru was actively processing events and listening to clues a he seems so passive. I suppose, as a wound-up East Coaster (a far East Coaster, as Palin would call me), I wanted Toru to spring to action when the wise or Zen thing to do was to wait, watch, and listen for the truth or the wave of motion to unfold. Perhaps we should regard and understand Toru as mindful above all else.
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Nov 17, 2008 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-you-should-stop-avoiding, weird-fiction

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't mean that...more

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May 20, 2009 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: slipstream, japan

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

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Aug 11, 2012 td Whittle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: td-whittle-reviews, favourites

I can understand readers having extreme love/hate reactions to Murakami, generally, and to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, particularly. As in his other works, the most recent of which is 1Q84, opening the covers of Wind-Up Bird is like strapping yourself into a carnival ride through someone else's dream world; unless you are very keenly interested in the mind of that dreamer, you will be in turns bored or repelled by the experience. I am keenly interested in Murakami, and I find myself willing to r...more I can understand readers having extreme love/hate reactions to Murakami, generally, and to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, particularly. As in his other works, the most recent of which is 1Q84, opening the covers of Wind-Up Bird is like strapping yourself into a carnival ride through someone else's dream world; unless you are very keenly interested in the mind of that dreamer, you will be in turns bored or repelled by the experience. I am keenly interested in Murakami, and I find myself willing to read pretty much anything he writes; but it is a love that surpasses my own understanding at times.

Like many other readers, I find Murakami's aesthetic sensibilities and his evocative symbolism - both of which can veer wildly from the banal and tedious to the overwrought, oversexualised, or even ridiculous - tend to stay with me long after I've closed one of his books (even the banal and tedious ones). I read him with the same sense of fascination that I read the works of Jung (even though Jung's work is nonfiction) because I think that Murakami is grappling with the same types of existential questions, and that he seeks his answers by exploring the same types of places: the labyrinths of our own minds; the subtle and delicate ties that bind us to other sentient beings; the pragmatic and sensual bonds between us and the inanimate objects that fill our lives; and the metaphorical (or actual, depending upon one's beliefs) collective unconscious.

I must admit to getting completely sucked into Murakami's worlds; so much so, that I sometimes forget to check-in with basic physical reality. I had read three Murakami books before it occurred to me that one cannot see the stars in daylight from the bottom of a well - a claim his characters make in at least two of his novels, including this one. Nevertheless, the idea works beautifully as a metaphor. As with his other books, his symbols and recurrent motifs have a resounding power. I am haunted by that deep, dry well; that wind-up bird that speaks one's doom; that labyrinthine hotel with its prostitutes of the mind, its waiter who whistles Rossini, and its endless supply of fresh cut flowers, fresh buckets of ice, and tumblers of Cutty Sark; that teenage girl with the wooden leg who visits the duck people in winter; and, unfortunately, even that hideous manskinner.

It is probably fair to say, as with his other books, that some of the characters in Wind-Up Bird are rendered in a way that makes them seem too lurid, or alternatively too vague, to sustain our disbelief; and that some bits of the plot feel under-done, while other bits feel too contrived. Still, I find that they satisfy me in some ineffable way, and that I am happy enough to stay in the dream, trusting that Murakami is taking me somewhere vivid and compelling and completely fresh. Then I find that I can't quite wake up for a while after it's ended.(less)

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Mar 02, 2013 Scarlet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: almost-favorites, magic-realism, off-the-beaten-track, 5-stars-worthy, best-books-i-read-this-year

Here’s my ~~pathetic~~ attempt at writing a review after struggling for close to three hours:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is not a book. It’s a pendulum that looks like a book. And staring at it for too long is bound to leave you hypnotized.

I honestly don’t know what else to say. I’m not even sure if I understood everything. I mean, sure, I understood each and every sentence but I can’t shake off the feeling that there’s something deep and profound hidden in every line. This is one of those books that...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Zach rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: hated, magical-realism

This book has received praise from many circles, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Wind-Up Bird was also considered a New York Times Notable Book the year it was published, and it earned Murakami, the author, a serious literary award presented by the Japanese Nobel Prize winning author Kenzaburo Oe. To top it off, most of the reviews on Goodreads are filled to bursting with lavish praise for both Murakami and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. But, less than...more This book has received praise from many circles, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Wind-Up Bird was also considered a New York Times Notable Book the year it was published, and it earned Murakami, the author, a serious literary award presented by the Japanese Nobel Prize winning author Kenzaburo Oe. To top it off, most of the reviews on Goodreads are filled to bursting with lavish praise for both Murakami and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. But, less than a third of the way through, I couldn't shake the feeling that this book was just a waste of time. I kept reminding myself that I can be a harsh critic and I have been known to initially dismiss a truly great book simply because the author's style or the novel's theme was initially frustrating (this has happened numerous times with novels like The Crying of Lot 49, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Stranger and Absalom, Absalom!). Now that I have finished the last page of Wind-Up Bird, I believe calling this novel a waste of time would be a compliment.

I forced myself to continue reading Wind-Up Bird by telling myself that a highly respected author like Murakami would eventually tie-up all the loose ends. When it became obvious that these ends would remain loose, I told myself he was creating a commentary on the nature of story telling, something like how all narrators are unreliable, or maybe purposefully writing a dense, impenetrable tome to reflect the popular postmodern world-view. I eventually started blaming the translator, because I couldn't imagine an author with as much recognition as Murakami writing such boring passages with such awkward prose. But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. At one point I put down the book, shook my head, got a glass of water, did some research on both the novel and the author, took a nap, woke up, shook my head again, forced myself to pick up the book, read three more chapters and suddenly realized that Wind-Up Bird was just a poorly written novel and I was making excuses because I was dazzled by all the praise on the cover.

There is a certain amount of wiggle room when it comes to writing a novel, but there are a few rules that should always be observed:
1) show, don't tell,
2) don't write down to your audience,
3) avoid clichés,
and mostly importantly,
4) establish a theme or message the novel must convey.

In Wind-Up Bird, Murakami shamelessly broke each of these rules. He simultaneously broke the first two rules by constantly adding explanations and observations that ruined any amount of mystery or subtlety that might have existed in this pseudo-detective story, effectively communicating to the audience "I don't trust you to read this novel correctly, so I'm going to fully explain each situation and character in detail so you can't possibly misunderstand me."

While Wind-Up Bird didn't employ traditional clichés, the constant introduction of psychic characters who simply "know" things because they were "supposed to know" became trite and suggested laziness of the author. Also, while half the characters were functionally omniscient, the other half did things without knowing why, claiming they were compelled by some uncontrollable, unknowable urge or force that often leaves them empty or numb of all feeling (literally, this happens with half of the characters in the novel).

But Murakami's most heinous crime is writing a 600 page novel that is functionally meaningless. An author can get away with a lot if ultimately the theme or message of the novel is intact. Try as I might, I can't find a message Murakami was trying to express through The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami did include a character that thoughtfully reflects on war crimes in World War II, but even this subplot was unfocused, and by the end of the novel this story within the story fizzles and suddenly ends without reaching a climax. I toyed around with the possibility that Murakami was writing a novel with a message about how novels don't need a theme or a message, but even if it that was Murakami's intention, it wouldn't justify (nor could it be justified by) such a clunky, awkward, ugly novel.

Also, this is a REALLY weird book. I have read Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, Slaughterhouse Five, The Bald Soprano, Naked Lunch and The Third Policeman, but somehow The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is the most bizarre, inexplicable piece of literature I have ever come across. At one point I considered giving up on decyphering the plot and just enjoy watching the strange parade of freaks and monsters in the novel. But, instead of making Wind-Up Bird fascinating, the weird characters and situations come across as ham-fisted, almost desperate additons to the book, as the weirdness is employed primarily as deus ex machina. Whenever the protagonist didn't know what to do next (which happened constantly) a psychic would suddenly and inexplicably appear to tell him the next step, and whenever the action began to slow down, the author would include a surreal dream or grotesque murder. This isn't a weird book that has fun upsetting conventions and flirting with the bizarre; this is a book that employs weirdness to compensate for the author's inability to keep control of his own novel.

Despite my best efforts to find something worthwhile between its covers, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle offers practically nothing to back up the incredible amount of praise it has received. Easily one of the worst things I have ever read.
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Aug 23, 2008 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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, males tend to gravitate mo...more 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, males tend to gravitate more towards physical activity. This is a world where faces get punched, caps are popped into asses, and folks get their freak on. Action verbs are being committed on a massive scale, and the world is a fundamentally different place after the fact. I've taken to calling this the macrocosm of human interaction.

Females, on the other hand, tend to be drawn more towards emotional activity. This is a world of intimate social interactions between individuals that may not always explicitly occur at the verbal level. The world is still fundamentally changed afterwards, but usually in a much more subtle way. Cultural arbiters have even been kind enough to gift us with the "Chick" prefix when the situation presented revolves heavily around romantic issues or therapy through excessive shopping. I refer to this as the microcosm of human interaction.

Once again, I realize that this does not apply to every male and female across the board. I also realize that most great works of art incorporate both of these to some extent.

So what the heck does all of this have to do with 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle'?

I believe that Murakami is dealing here with the microcosm almost exclusively. Having said that, I am really drawn to it at some level. The story is very vast, as the book spans over 600 pages. A very basic plot synopsis without spoilers would be that Toru Okada is going through some massive changes in his life. These changes may have to do with emerging psychic type powers. If this is the case, he will have to master these new abilities in order to bring about positive change in the lives of those around him. That description was so generic that it sucked the life out of the book and made it sound incredibly boring, but I assure you that is not the case.

A problem that I was having with this book and also the previous Murakami book that I read ('After Dark') is that not all questions are answered by the end of the book. However, I am now starting to come to peace with this. After all, that's how the microcosm often is in real life. Quoting my Goodreads buddy Tami, "It's the journey."
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Jan 07, 2008 B rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 knowing that the guy who...more

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Sep 12, 2007 August rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Lovers, painters, those who yearn to get lost in moonlight or a water well.

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 beauty and...more

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Dec 12, 2011 Kristin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own-it, read-in-2009, favorites, manic-murakami-madness, best-of-2009

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 held...more

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Sep 06, 2010 Katsumi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-crime-thriller

Having read this book shortly after Murakami's "Norwegian Wood," which I consider to be among the best books I've ever read, I found The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to be a little disappointing. Murakami did a wonderful job again of creating memorable characters (May Kasahara in particular, but Creta Kano and the "Akasakas" were favorites of mine as well). He told incredible tales: the story of Lieutenant Mamiya probably could've been a novel in itself. Creta Kano's "defilement" was chilling, and her...more Having read this book shortly after Murakami's "Norwegian Wood," which I consider to be among the best books I've ever read, I found The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to be a little disappointing. Murakami did a wonderful job again of creating memorable characters (May Kasahara in particular, but Creta Kano and the "Akasakas" were favorites of mine as well). He told incredible tales: the story of Lieutenant Mamiya probably could've been a novel in itself. Creta Kano's "defilement" was chilling, and her metamorphoses were equally stunning. The Akasakas' tale was interesting too.
But Murakami just couldn't tie it all together. Many times I found myself saying "what on earth was THAT all about" ... the story of Cinnamon as a boy, where he crawls into bed with himself, for example. Or Okada experiencing different "self"s and different "here"s. However, my main source of dissatisfaction was Toru Okada himself. In the midst of all of these dynamic and active characters, Okada just sits around waiting for phone calls, loiters around Shinjuku, and sits in his retrofitted well. Except for a few, noteworthy events which stand out- his battle with death his first trip into the well, his battle with the musician, and then his knife-bat fight in the mysterious hotel room- there is very little substance to Okada. Those three events were, for me, easily the highlights of the Okada Storyline. The image I had of May Kasahara standing at the top of the well asking Okada how it felt to die little by little sticks with me still. But the majority of the time, Okada just went around doing what other people told him to do. By the end, he wasn't even in charge of the clothes that he wore. He "searched" for his wife by sitting in a well designed for him in a house bought for him by the Akasakas. I felt absolutely no empathy towards Okada. In this surreal, harsh world that Murakami has created, Okada seems too pliable and soft for the protagonist's role. If people like Okada are supposed to defeat the Noboru Watayas of the world, we're all in deep trouble.

In the end, Okada is left where he started- waiting for his wife to return. Reading the book, that's essentially how I felt: I had just gone through an amazing, convoluted experience just to end up right back where I was when I started "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle."

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About Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'.

Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often disting...more

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“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.” — 797 people liked it

“Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?” — 638 people liked it

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