The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: BOOK THREE *SPOILERS*

[Sarah]

Feel free to post anything about BOOK THREE of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

[Sarah]

Hmm, here's some interesting info about the English translation:

Two chapters from the third volume of the original three-volume Japanese paperback edition were not included in the English translation. In addition, one of the chapters near the excluded two was moved ahead of another chapter, taking it out of the context of the original order.[1]

The two missing chapters elaborate on the relationship between Toru Okada and Creta Kano, and a "hearing" of the wind-up bird as Toru burns a box of Kumiko's belongings.

[Valerie]

Interesting. I read somewhere that the publisher of the English translation had a word count that he wouldn't budge on, and that's why the chapters were cut. I'll see if I can find the source.

I would have liked to hear more about Toru's relationship with Creta. I felt like Creta and Malta Kano just kind of dropped out at the end of the book and that was one of the things I disliked about it. I would've liked to have seen more resolution there.

I also would've liked to see Toru burn Kumiko's belongings. He was just so go-with-the-flow sometimes that I wanted to shake him! I thought he was way too reasonable and understanding about Kumiko leaving him. Burning would've been good, IMO.

[Sarah]

I think he kept her things because he kept hoping she would come back to him.

Yeah, I thought the dream about Creta Kano having a kid was way weird. Did she in reality have one? And did Toru father it?

[Valerie]

I thought he kept her things because he just represented this inertia to me. I don't know that I found him capable of actually making the decision to consciously keep her things in case she returned. I see what you're saying though, and I have to admit that my own view of it may be skewed because I had a lot of trouble accepting what I found to be Toru's passivity.

My take on Creta Kano's kid was that it really happened, even though Toru saw it in a dream. I wasn't quite sure what to make of her saying that the baby was half him and half Lieutenant Mamiya, though.

???

To me, this was just another instance in the book where reality crossed into surreality and you just had to kind of go with it. What did you think?

[Valerie]

One of my favorite parts of the book was when May Kasahara wrote Toru the letter describing how she bathed herself in the moonlight. I just thought everything about that passage was beautiful.

[Valerie]

RE message two - here's the reference that I had read describing the word limit for the translation (it obviously has some biased comments from the person recounting it):

In a review in World Literature Today Yoshiko Yokochi Samuel writes that "the English version has been subjected to extensive cutting, undoubtedly under pressure from the publisher". This sad fact is now confirmed in Jay Rubin's Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words, where he writes that it was "stipulated in Murakami's contract that the book should not exceed a certain length". Rubin, in fact, handed in both an abridged and a complete translation, but Knopf stuck to their ridiculous word-limit. May they suffer at the hands of the literary gods for their crimes against helpless readers and Murakami. But it's just another reminder, that when you read a book in translation you're getting screwed -- often far worse than you could even contemplate.

[Sarah]

I guess I just comfort myself with the idea that they wouldn't cut anything vital to the story.

[Valerie]

I don't know - I feel like it should be the author's choice as to what is or isn't included. On the one hand I know that there are always editors (or other forces in the publishing industry) involved, but on the other this was a previously published (finished) book... and because this book seemed so ambiguous at times, I feel like I could've used any additional info the author originally provided the reader.

Or maybe it just would've confused me more :)

[Sarah]

That's true.