The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Well...

This is a truly tough one to review. It's a complex and convoluted piece of work that defies easy categorization.

To give you a better flavor of it: On page 567 of 607, we are delving into the story of a Russian KGB guy conversing with Lieutenant Mamiya, a Japanese prisoner of war in 1947. Earlier in the book, we learn that Lieutenant Mamiya once embarked on a secret mission in Outer Mongolia, and among the small band was a Corporal Honda.

Much later in life (in the 1980s), Corporal Honda, now Mr Honda and a medium/spiritual advisor, gives advice sessions to a newly married couple at the insistence of the bride's family. The husband in this couple is the man from whose point of view the book is presented.

We spend our time with this man, Mr Okada, years after the Mr Honda sessions (Mr Honda is now deceased). Mr Okada has lost his cat and is soon abandoned by his wife in rather mildly mysterious circumstances.

So... why, near the end of the book, are we reading about a Russian man in a prisoner of war camp who interacted with a man who, some years before that, had very briefly spent time with the man who, in later life, gave vague advice and long wartime monologues to this young couple? There appears to be no reason whatsoever. It's just that kind of book.

Our man, Mr Okada, meets a host of strange people and engages in a series of strange activities. The strange stuff doesn't seem to have much motivation other than the fact that he's experiencing a slow-time breakdown over months and months. The strange people (mostly young women) variously phone him up, show up at his house, arrange assignations, or live nearby. Most of the conversations begin with a line or two of small talk (often less) followed by intimate and often inappropriate revelations.

The phone calls and many of our man's weird dreams contain sex or naked women, all described in a rather dry and clinical manner.

So, on many levels, this is a weird, disjointed, and rambling book full of strange, disjointed, and rambling asides. It's literary fiction and magical realism, and the cast list is filled with slightly psychic people (whose powers are more confusing than useful). This gives it the license to essentially do whatever it wants - and it does.

In addition to the semi-frequent sex, there is one rather horrific scene where someone is skinned alive. Again, there doesn't seem to be any point in us being told this (it's a war-time memory of a man Mr Okada has met only once because of that man's distant association with a man he met a few times a few years ago...

But, and it's a big but, this is literary fiction, and everything can be justified without recourse to plot or reason, as long as it can fit into some theme or create some required response.

Let's digress briefly... Modern art. What's that all about then? Tens of millions are paid for canvases that are splattered paint or a red rectangle on a white background. And yet, the intelligentsia of the field line up behind the opinion that "this" is genius, "that" is okay, and "those" are trash.

I suspect that modern art involves influencers handing out opinions and others lining up behind them. If you cloned the famous art critic and placed fresh versions of them in a huge gallery filled with modern art, I think each clone would emerge declaring completely different pieces to be the best.

Does the same thing happen with literary fiction? I simply don't know. And I have never been able to say whether literary fiction books are good, bad, or indifferent other than on the basis of the writing on a line-by-line and page-by-page scale, and the answer to the question: do I want to keep on reading?

Here, the writing line by line was fine. Better than fine, it was good. Very good. Not, for me, great. But it was well done. Page by page depended on the page really, but certainly, there were plenty of good pages too.

And I did keep reading, although it took me about 7 weeks to finish. There is this mild mystery behind the missing wife, and I hoped to get some answers for all the weird dreams, strange ladies, explicit phone calls, etc.

In the dying pages of the book, we do get some handwaving explanations for some of it, and in the framework of the vague psychic stuff going on... okay... I'll buy it.

But I think to focus on the plot, or the characters, or even the writing is to miss the point of the book and perhaps all literary fiction - it's the themes that are king, and how the book makes you feel, the moods it evokes, the ineffable... stuff... that it might capture, if only briefly, and thus allow you to have shared with the author.

That all sounds rather pompous... but there you go. I can't rate this book. I'm glad I read it, though I probably won't be queuing up to read another similar one in a hurry. I don't want to do it down though. There are LOTS of interesting and intriguing things in it. Root about in it like you would a bric-a-brac shop and maybe you'll emerge feeling enlightened!

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When I attempted to pen a review of this book, it emerged sounding something like this:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a magnificently written, intricately woven literary work that delves us into the life of Toru Okada. He abandons his ordinary job and appears to be awaiting the next turn his life will take. However, a succession of events transpires that turns his life topsy-turvy. Although he persists in allowing events to unfold around him, what develops subsequently is anything but ordinary.

Beautifully written? Complexly woven? Come on. I'm not sure why it was coming out that way. I mean: turns his life upside-down? If I encountered this review, I'd be rolling my eyes.

But for some reason, I found penning this review to be extremely arduous. Firstly, I can't summarize the story. It truly is beautiful, and it truly is complex, but I'm going to leave the elucidation of the plot to the little GoodReads button that you can click beside the book. I simply don't possess the hours it would demand in this instance for me personally to recreate that. It's just so lengthy and convoluted that it's challenging to condense.

I felt that perusing the chronicle places the reader in Toru's position, as numerous of the more surreal events compel you to suspend disbelief and simply be carried along by the story. You have to be able to go with the flow to relish this book. Many colorful and idiosyncratic characters are introduced, propelling the narrative with their own tales and adding a plethora of subplots. It seems as if it could become overwhelming to keep track of, but each one was so exquisitely crafted that they drew me in and held my interest. I discovered many of the subplots (and secondary characters) to be far more captivating than Toru's own story.

My sole gripe with this book is that I felt as if it left many of those stories unresolved or forgotten. I partly attribute this to the surreal nature of the book - I didn't really anticipate everything to be disclosed - but also to the fact that it was simply too much to tie up. At a certain juncture towards the conclusion of the book, I found myself repeatedly wondering: but hey, whatever happened to so-and-so? And what about this part of the book that was so significant at the time, but then just ceased to be discussed? And what about...? The sum of all the components of the book didn't entirely add up for me.

But this is the kind of book that upon completion, you yearn to discuss it with someone, compare notes, and pose questions. I like it because not only did I enjoy reading it, but it also kindled in me a desire to pursue those questions further. It's not necessarily a difficult book to read, but it's definitely a lot to wrap your mind around.

I'd award it three-and-a-half stars if I could, but I can't, so I'm settling for: three.

I really wanted to have a greater affection for this book than I actually ended up having.

The way the story is told is truly remarkable. Even though I had certain problems with some of the characters, to be honest, all of the female characters, they still managed to be constantly captivating. However, I just couldn't fully engage with this one. The story, although interesting, seemed to wander aimlessly. By the end, it appeared as if it had completely forgotten where it was initially headed. Murakami begins various plot points, presents us with new mysteries and characters, but then he gets sidetracked by something and forgets to resolve the things that he told us would be significant. I attempted to start this review by summarizing the plot, but then I realized that I simply couldn't. So that's most likely not a favorable sign.

And of course, it turns out that Murakami is not just an ordinary male novelist; he is a Male Novelist. First, there were those little outbursts of misogyny that kept popping up. Then there was May Kashahara, who is sort of like a Lolita/Manic Pixie Dreamgirl monstrosity. She is inexplicably attracted to our hero, because apparently, and she says extremely irritating Manic Pixie Dreamgirl things like "People like me don't get along well with dictionaries," which, aside from being one of the most annoying sentences I've ever read, also makes no fucking sense. She makes Natalie Portman in Garden State seem realistic and down-to-earth.

I'm glad that I finally got around to reading this, as I've been intending to read Murakami for years. But it's going to be a very long time before I can be convinced to pick up another one of his books again.

Be sure to buy my album, Murakami Can't Write Women For Shit, on your way out. We also have t-shirts available.

This book has received extensive praise from various circles, including renowned publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Wind-Up Bird was even regarded as a New York Times Notable Book in the year of its publication. Moreover, the author, Murakami, was honored with a serious literary award presented by the Japanese Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe. Additionally, most of the reviews on Goodreads are filled with lavish praise for both Murakami and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

However, less than a third of the way through, I couldn't摆脱 the feeling that this book was a waste of time. I repeatedly reminded myself that I can be a harsh critic and have initially dismissed truly great books due to the author's style or the novel's theme being initially frustrating. This has occurred numerous times with novels such as The Crying of Lot 49, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Stranger, and Absalom, Absalom! Now that I have completed 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, telling myself that a highly respected author like Murakami would eventually tie up all the loose ends. When it became evident that these ends would remain loose, I convinced myself that he was creating a commentary on the nature of storytelling, perhaps something like how all narrators are unreliable, or purposefully writing a dense, impenetrable tome to reflect the popular postmodern world-view. I even started blaming the translator, as 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 amiss. 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 degree of flexibility when it comes to writing a novel, but there are a few rules that should always be adhered to: 1) show, don't tell; 2) don't write down to your audience; 3) avoid clichés; and most importantly, 4) establish a theme or message that the novel must convey.

In Wind-Up Bird, Murakami flagrantly violated each of these rules. He simultaneously broke the first two rules by constantly adding explanations and observations that destroyed any 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 use traditional clichés, the constant introduction of psychic characters who simply "know" things because they were "supposed to know" became trite and suggested the author's laziness. Also, while half of 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 left them empty or numb of all feeling (literally, this happens with half of the characters in the novel).

But Murakami's most egregious offense 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 that Murakami was attempting to convey through The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami did include a character who 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 entertained 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 that was his intention, it wouldn't justify (nor could it be justified by) such a clunky, awkward, and ugly novel.

Also, this is an extremely 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 encountered. At one point, I considered giving up on deciphering the plot and just enjoying 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 heavy-handed, almost desperate additions to the book, as the weirdness is primarily employed as a 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 uses weirdness to compensate for the author's inability to maintain 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 support the incredible amount of praise it has received. It is easily one of the worst things I have ever read.

OK, so it turns out that I never actually got around to giving this book a comprehensive review. But now, after a full 8 months have passed, I am back to fulfill the task that I promised so long ago.

As I mentioned before, this book was a disappointment. I initially thought the central concept of the book was quite interesting: Toru Okada's wife vanishes, and he must embark on a surreal journey through a strange and fantastical world, crossing paths with peculiar and captivating characters. However, despite the promise of this premise, I felt that the execution really didn't come together to form a cohesive story.

I believe the first issue is that Toru Okada (nicknamed Wind-Up Bird by a young neighbor) was simply too passive. Many people interacted with him and pushed him forward, but he seemed content to wallow in a dry water well. Given his lethargy, I had difficulty rooting for him. Additionally, while the strange cast of characters he encounters are interesting in their own right, they didn't seem sufficient to hold the story together. Moreover, many of the surreal fantasy elements remained strange, unexplained, and seemed to be there merely to advance the plot. I'm probably missing a boatload of symbolisms and hidden meanings, but as a whole, the story felt very flat to me.

That's not to say that there was nothing redeeming about the book. There were several stories that other characters told Toru Okada throughout the course of the book that I found quite engaging. For example, there was a story about a Japanese veteran's experience in China and another about a zoo in Korea. Those passages were interesting and held my attention, well worth the time invested in them. But then, unfortunately, the book would foolishly return to Toru Okada's story, and I would be reminded of how passive he was and how meandering his storyline was.

The fantasy elements/magical realism of the story seemed haphazard, bizarre, and remained unexplained throughout. I felt that this weakened the story because I had no expectations for what was possible within the world. The intrusions of the supernatural into the real world seemed random and inexplicable. We never receive any resolution as to why, all of a sudden, Toru Okada can access the strange world he occasionally finds himself in. Many strange things happen to him or the people in the stories he is told, but it all just seemed to contribute to the meandering plot(s) of the book.

All in all, this book was too long, filled with too many disconnected stories, and had an insufficient main plot led by an unsympathetic protagonist in a bizarre, surreal world. However, many of my friends have enjoyed this book, so don't let my review dissuade you from giving it a try.

Hoe is het om in een door corona gegijzelde wereld een roman te lezen over een jonge man die vrijwillig dagenlang in een meters diepe put in de achtertuin van een verlaten huis gaat zitten. Blijft het boek na herlezing overeind?

In a world held captive by the coronavirus, it's an interesting question: What is it like to read a novel about a young man who willingly sits for days in a deep well in the backyard of a deserted house? Does the book hold up after a reread?

Nieuwsgierigmakend interview

I read "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" over 10 years ago after seeing an old interview clip (2007) in which Tim Krabbé explains to Matthijs van Nieuwkerk what is so unique about Murakami's books. At 2:35 of this clip, he calls the Japanese author's imagery'masterful' and Krabbé recites a typical Murakami construction. The clip made me curious. I read "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle", wanted more and more and devoured the entire available oeuvre (except for his short story collection) in the following months. I had never had such a hunger for more work by the same author.

Herlezen, doen of niet doen?

How did it feel to read this book again? At first, it was as if I was seeing an old friend again, but that feeling disappeared in part 3, the chapters that Murakami added later. Toru Okada's search for his wife is stuck and as a rereader, it bothered me that mainly characters are added instead of solutions. I'll keep the 5 stars but I'll say that after rereading I would rather give 4 stars.

Have you not read this book yet? Then don't let my review put you off and take a dive into this mind-expanding book.

Met welke moet je beginnen?

Never read anything by this author before? This English-language article gives you advice.

“When you are accustomed to that kind of life - of never obtaining anything you desire - you cease to know what it is that you want.”

“When you are used to the kind of life - of never getting anything you want - you stop knowing what it is you want.”

I believe this is my third reading of Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and I am still thoroughly enjoying it! Nevertheless, I cannot claim to fully comprehend it, yet that is the essence of a Murakami novel, and I embrace that. An earlier review is presented below.

I am a great admirer of Haruki Murakami. When you pick up one of his novels, you are never entirely certain where you will ultimately end up. This is most definitely the case with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle! It commences as a sort of detective story, in which Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat in their Tokyo suburb. Subsequently, it becomes extremely challenging to state what the book is truly about. Did the search for the cat set off all the madness that surrounds Toru, or had everything already been set in motion? And if Toru's descent into darkness had already been initiated, did it begin with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, a secret from his wife's childhood, or was there something more recent that was accountable?

There is no way (at least for me) to determine cause and effect, but perhaps that is precisely how it felt for Toru. He saw no means to disentangle the strangeness that he had permitted into his life. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a lengthy book, filled with eccentric characters and wild digressions. As a reader, you feel as if you have been cast into the well along with Toru (or, for some inexplicable reason, have voluntarily placed yourself there), and whether or not you can make sense of any of it, Murakami invites you to share Toru's experience. It is a beautifully written and captivating book! I rate it 4.5 stars, rounded up!

I've finally been able to finish this beautiful monster, my first foray into reading Murakami's work! Yes, it was my first time reading him.

At once howlingly funny, deeply sad, disturbing and profound, Mr. Okada, the seemingly lazy and hapless hero of the novel, is someone you're likely not to forget. He is a complex character who undergoes a significant transformation throughout the story.

The disappearances of his cat, Mackerel, and icily cold wife Kumiko are the catalysts of the novel, driving the plot into high gear. As Okada becomes a kind of bumbling detective, he meets a cast of strange characters with names such as Nutmeg and Cinnamon. There is also a young girl who works at a hat factory and writes letters to Okada pretending to be his disappeared wife. Additionally, survivors of the horrors of Japanese's annexation of Manchuria keep appearing and reappearing throughout the novel, adding an element of mystery and historical depth.

The novel seems to be a metaphor of Japan's past and future, an examination of the absurdities of the human condition and the randomness of it all. Murakami's writing style is both engaging and thought-provoking, making this a truly unforgettable read.