The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - Books (Haruki Murakami, Paperback)

Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.

Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.

If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. --Simon Leake, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

Chanpaszen
France
28th September 2008

My favourite Murakami
I love this book - it takes me back to a place I'd forgotten. Youth, somewhere between 14 and 17yrs old. Murakami's unconnected way of looking at the world where everything is an adventure and nothing is sure. You leave motives and drives to adults and just get on with experiencing whatever comes your way. I don't think I've ever read anyone who writes in this mood and Murakami does it so well.

A music fan
Athens, Greece
21st July 2008

A not well structured Murakami novel
I've read quite a few books of Murakami (Kafka on Shore, after the quake, birthday stories and of course the Wind-up bird) and I consider him to be one of the best novelists out there(along with Paul Auster and Philip Roth). He has an amazing ability to narrate surreal situations in the most natural way, as if these things are happening here and now. He is also a master of bringing feelings and thoughts that we have well-buried inside us to the surface in just a few lines. Kafka is a brilliant example. Each and every word he uses is carefully chosen so as to make the novel like a very tightly woven web. Yet this is done in a seemingly effortless way that the reader (at least I! ) finds refreshing.
Having said this, I have to say that the Wind-up bird left me a bit puzzled. I found its structure problematic and overall imbalanced. At some points I kept reading the book with great enthusiasm, but most of the times I kept asking myself "Why is he writing all these things?" I read it until the very end, some 600 pages, slept over it, thought about it after some days, but never found an answer to my question. Yes, it is about alienation, yes he shows how problematic and fragmented relationships can be in our post-modern society. No, he didn't have to spend 600 pages to get across these notions.
The fact that it didn't really enjoy the book doesn't deter me from reading more of Murakami. I've now started "South of the border" and it seems to be a delight!

Tony
UK
15th July 2008

A New experience - So moving !!!
My son asked for the latest Murakami book for his birthday and I sent it via Amazon - I had never heard of Murakami (he has all of them he says). Then I listened to "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" as a downloaded 24 odd hour audiobook (The reader was absolutely fantastic by the way and whoever translated the original Japanese must have a fantastic ear for both languages).
When I had listened to the last of the story I felt a great sense of loss - I have seldom felt such attachment to the characterisations and mystical atmosphere Murakami has created in this wonderful book - I am trying to reduce the purchases of books as the house is over-flowing with treasures - but I simply need the Printed Book as a special talisman or spiritual object ! Apart from the story the information about Japanese contemporary life is fascinating and wish I knew much more about the culture and language which seems so musical - I have trained in Reiki and knew something about the philosophy of Shinto/Buddism but have never met a Japanese - what an Author - I have to read all of his works (but I'm like that - obsessive).

Pritthijit Datta
Stockton on Tees, Teesside
13th June 2008

A literacy masterpiece
Haruki Murakami produces an excellent written piece about Japanese culture. The novel journeys during the 20th century. In addition it explores the historical events of the country. The story is narrated beautifully, richly descriptive and entertaining. The effect is to increase reader's interest levels and attention.

The author is without any doubts one of the best to emerge from his native Japan. The author's novels are bestselling material. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle proves to be no exception. He has mastered the skill of writing to perfection and whilst reading this novel, it becomes clearly evident. The novel conisist of an interesting and a well defined plot. It focuses on your average Japanese Toru Okada, who lives in the surburbs and leds a life with little to really boost about. He meets bizarre characters through various adventures. These range from ex-soldiers, an unstable teenager, a fashion designer, psychics, a high profiled politicians and mobsters. The themes tackled are wide ranging. These include prosecution, politics, family life, world war and gangsters. The author has incorporated these themes in this marathon 607 page novel. It is an amazing skill and shows he can maintain interest with readers, without being exhausted with ideas . That by no means an easy skill to master.

The Wind Up Bird chronicle provides a real insight about the Japanese culture and its history. It is a well written prose filled with interesting facts, colourful characters and a brilliant setting. Haruki Murakami demonstrates the real qualities of what propels his status as a well respected author around the world. He writes good stories to really entertain readers and arouse interest.

Deksels
Netherlands
17th May 2008

Stretching it somewhat
Before this, I read Norwegian Wood which is a very well written and moving book. The wind up bird chronicle is more surreal and reminds me somewhat of Garcia Marquez, which is okay if the storytelling is excellent. The book has several story lines going, and not all of them equally interesting. This undermines the urgency of the book and I wonder whether the book wouldn't have been better when the stories about the past of some of the minor characters would have been left out.