The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel

The book unfolds as the most delicate portrait of a soul I have ever encountered. Kafka on the Shore is my second favorite Murakami; however, the Chronicle holds a special place in my heart. The surreal is wonderfully under control and presented to the reader in ways that draw the reader in and leave the reader in awe and mesmerized. If there is any flaw to the book, it is that it is too short....more

The book unfolds as the most delicate portrait of a soul I have ever encountered. Kafka on the Shore is my second favorite Murakami; however, the Chronicle holds a special place in my heart. The surreal is wonderfully under control and presented to the reader in ways that draw the reader in and leave the reader in awe and mesmerized. If there is any flaw to the book, it is that it is too short. I feel as if time was suddenly, unexpectedly, and for no apparent reason, accelerated in the middle of the book. Perhaps the reason was to keep the book from being 800 pages or so. Killer tomes never stopped Stephen King, and I don't see why this decision was made for/by Murakami. On the other hand, perhaps that is the way the Muse's song unfolded to Murakami. It is a beautiful must read.   hide

I first read this book in the summer of 1999 and it felt as if someone had taken my brain apart and put it back together again. I literally wasn't able to read anything else for several weeks after finishing it as I couldn't get it off my mind. I've gone through it 4 times since then and am constantly amazed at how readable it is even when I know what is coming. There is always something that I...more

I first read this book in the summer of 1999 and it felt as if someone had taken my brain apart and put it back together again. I literally wasn't able to read anything else for several weeks after finishing it as I couldn't get it off my mind. I've gone through it 4 times since then and am constantly amazed at how readable it is even when I know what is coming. There is always something that I see for he first time or reinterpret in a new and interesting way. In a way, it makes me think of what it must be like to watch someone else's dreams. Something I did years ago that is still sort of interesting for me was to think about who I would cast in a movie version of the book, if I had the chance. I stuck with Japanese actors and actresses for authenticity. Hopefully some of these names will be familiar to some readers. Feel free to let me know what you think of my choices! Toru: Takao Osawa May Kasahara: Ryoko Hirosue (circa 1999-2000) or the current Masami Nagasawa Kumiko: Takako Matsu Noboru Wataya: Takanori Jinnai Malta Kanno: Takako Tokiwa Creta Kanno: Yuko Takeuchi Mr. Honda: Beat Takeshi Nutmeg: Yuriko Ishida Cinnamon: Hiroshi Abe   hide

Haruki Murakami has very quickly become my favorite author. This book immediately captured my attention. The struggles of the main character and the mystery that shrouds not only him but the people he comes into contact with is provocative. I did become frustrated near the end feeling the book was a bit too long and he could have ended it sooner. But, I still deeply enjoyed this novel and would...more

Haruki Murakami has very quickly become my favorite author. This book immediately captured my attention. The struggles of the main character and the mystery that shrouds not only him but the people he comes into contact with is provocative. I did become frustrated near the end feeling the book was a bit too long and he could have ended it sooner. But, I still deeply enjoyed this novel and would highly recommend this book and any other work by Murakami.   hide

My first taste of Japanse magical realism. Reading this book was a dream...in that I really felt like I was dreaming as I read it. The main character (who I really identified with) floats between the real world and a sort of dream world, doing sort of tangential battle with an accomplished and image-conscious evil. Both worlds feel pretty dreamy though. My only problem was that the book was...more

My first taste of Japanse magical realism. Reading this book was a dream...in that I really felt like I was dreaming as I read it. The main character (who I really identified with) floats between the real world and a sort of dream world, doing sort of tangential battle with an accomplished and image-conscious evil. Both worlds feel pretty dreamy though. My only problem was that the book was divided into three sections (originally published as a trilogy in Japan) and the sections didn't necessarily carry over certain characters and ideas between them. I guess this adds to the dreamlike quality, like three separate dreams in one night. The book is incredibly slow, but if you get far enough into it, you'll be hooked.   hide

I absolutely loved this book. It is a very imaginative work and I found myself almost addicted to the book. It follows the adventures of a man trying to find himself. He quits his job at the start of the book and through his ordinary day to day life begins to experience some very extraordinary things.What I loved about it was that it describes the simple things we do in life so accurately e.g...more

I absolutely loved this book. It is a very imaginative work and I found myself almost addicted to the book. It follows the adventures of a man trying to find himself. He quits his job at the start of the book and through his ordinary day to day life begins to experience some very extraordinary things.What I loved about it was that it describes the simple things we do in life so accurately e.g preparing dinner, reading and having a coffee. The character would go from this simple existence to meeting very unusual characters.As the book goes on, it gets more and more strange. The cat dissapears and turns up again and then his wife dissapears. His life really begins to unravel in his quest to find out what happened to his wife and why. It becomes quite graphic as there are flashbacks to battles in Mongolia (a very unusual part of the book).I couldn't put down this book and can't really compare it to another book. It keeps you on the edge all the time.   hide

I get bored by chunky passages of descriptions on appearances, sceneries or tasks in fiction novels. Being a 600-pager, "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" does have a good portion of detailed words, yet I enjoyed every use of them. Murakami writes of daily regular routines or of things resembling some sort of normalcy, with partly supernatural elements (this is normal?!) and with fascinating...more

I get bored by chunky passages of descriptions on appearances, sceneries or tasks in fiction novels. Being a 600-pager, "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" does have a good portion of detailed words, yet I enjoyed every use of them. Murakami writes of daily regular routines or of things resembling some sort of normalcy, with partly supernatural elements (this is normal?!) and with fascinating characters. Damaged, regretful, strong-willed, naive, loving - all common people. He creates events that lead them towards becoming extraordinary. Stories within stories, there is a variety for the reader and the passing of each one builds this chronicle of Toru Okada's journey to an accustomed life once more. The author never ceases to amaze me. This is but my second one, and I will be sure to read others of his even more now.   hide

My cousin had been pushing me to read Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle eversince we started our little book and DVD exchanges a couple of years ago. I really wasn't interested in Murakami at first because I was warned of his metaphysical weirdness and I figured that I wasn't ready for anything like it. During that time, I was more into stories about the regular guy, the Nick Hornby...more

My cousin had been pushing me to read Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle eversince we started our little book and DVD exchanges a couple of years ago. I really wasn't interested in Murakami at first because I was warned of his metaphysical weirdness and I figured that I wasn't ready for anything like it. During that time, I was more into stories about the regular guy, the Nick Hornby novels, in particular. Then one day, much to both my cousin's and my surprise, I finally just said "yes" when she asked me if I wanted to try reading Murakami. I actually felt prepared for Murakami after reading Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, a great surrealistic work. It really is purely coincidental that I have been reading Japanese authors lately and I must add that this has nothing to do with a certain someone, okay? Ishiguro is actually an Anglo-Asian and writes in English while Japanese-born Murakami writes in Japanese and is beautifully translated by Jay Rubin. I cannot compare both authors yet, I have finished reading one work of each and I feel it's too early for me to compare them. And so, I am introduced to my first Murakami novel. And boy, is it thick. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is about Toru Okada and his experiences that begin with a trio of problems: he lost his job, his cat mysteriously disappears, and his wife suddenly fails to return home from work. Confounded by these occurrences, he resorts to search for his wife and cat. This then leads him to encounter a wide array of strange people that includes a pair of strange psychic sisters, an eccentric teenager, an old war veteran who experiences the horrors of war in Manchuria, a loony mother-and-son team, and a creepy brother-in-law. I am mesmerized at the varied plots and sub-plots the story spreads out to, that, at times, results in utter confusion and a lot of necessary backtracking. Nevertheless, it still turned out to be quite a unique page-turner of a mystery. I guess Murakami found a way to intelligently intersect the different paths and make them into one cohesive and fascinating tale. Though, I still felt lost at the end due to some unresolved issues and unanswered questions in the story.   hide

One of my all-time favorite books. The strength of Murakami's writing is generally not in the plot or the theme, but in the characters. He always conjures up an assortment of unique characters and develops them into real, living, breathing people. A good number of chapters are simply the stories of various characters (sometimes appearing only for that short chapter and then disappearing for the...more

One of my all-time favorite books. The strength of Murakami's writing is generally not in the plot or the theme, but in the characters. He always conjures up an assortment of unique characters and develops them into real, living, breathing people. A good number of chapters are simply the stories of various characters (sometimes appearing only for that short chapter and then disappearing for the rest of the novel), related to the protagonist. The book itself has a very magic realism feel to it: A story set in the real world, but with sprinkles of psychic forces and powers here and there. As with all Murakami books, you still have questions at the end. But compared to many of his other novels (Norwegian Wood, for example), the ending to Wind-up Bird is much more satisfying and still leaves you with a certain closure, an understanding of what's been going on for the past 600 pages.   hide

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...more

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   hide