Being a reader can be a truly strange experience. In my case, it often feels even more so. For instance, every time I pick up a particular book or look at a review, I'm reminded of that one random angry person who thought my review of Ready Player Two was a heinous crime against humanity. They called me a "teenager" spewing "bile and bilge" in the comments. How redundant is that?

But generally speaking, regardless of who you are, being a reader is weird. It's not just because of that meme that says "reading is staring at pieces of tree and hallucinating." Nor is it just because you might read books like the ones I do, which are by definition strange, dealing with things like men living at the bottom of wells, intense hallucinations, and toupees.

It's also because, for example, you constantly apply the oddest moral standards to books. Like the single note I wrote about one book was "you're actually allowed to be sexist if you're really talented." What I mean by that is that even though a book might be misogynistic, as Murakami sometimes is, it can still be good, interesting, one-of-a-kind, and engaging. Even if it's very long and takes a long time to read.

Does any of this make sense to anyone other than me? The bottom line is, I'm not saying it's okay to hate women. I'm just saying that if a book is good enough, I can overlook certain flaws for 600 or so pages.

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pre-review

I feel like I just had a brain transplant.

Review to come / 3.5 or 4 stars

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currently-reading updates

Am I even a bookworm if I haven't read a Murakami novel?

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Reading books by Asian authors for AAPI month!

Book 1: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Book 2: Siren Queen

Book 3: The Heart Principle

Book 4: N.P.

Book 5: The Hole

Book 6: Set on You

Book 7: Disorientation

Book 8: Parade

Book 9: If I Had Your Face

Book 10: Joan is Okay

Book 11: Strange Weather in Tokyo

Book 12: Sarong Party Girls

Book 13: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an utterly absurd yet equally captivating novel. It centers around multiple but somewhat tangential searches conducted in and around Tokyo by the protagonist, Toru Okada, a lost soul in his early 30's.

Toru is unemployed, lacking any ambition, and in a loveless marriage. In the initial part of the book, he spends a significant amount of his waking hours in search of his missing cat. Through this search, the reader is introduced to a host of endearing yet bizarre characters. There are a pair of psychic sisters who later visit the protagonist's dreams, and a high school dropout named May, with a penchant for death, with whom Toru engages in several existential conversations.

When his wife suddenly abandons him without any apparent explanation, Toru begins to spend his days lingering at the bottom of a dry well in the neighborhood. This serves as a kind of introspective exercise for him to find himself. At one point while he is down in the well, he has a strange experience that might or might not be a dream. (There is a continuous overlap of dream and reality sequences throughout the book.) In his dream (or perhaps not a dream), Toru seems to pass through the wall of the well into a room where a woman seduces him. (There is no need to disclose precisely what occurs after that; suffice it to say that Toru emerges as a radically transformed man with mysterious powers.....)

As the narrative unfolds, Toru spends increasingly more time in the well or in the mysterious room, and it becomes progressively more challenging for the reader (and I suspect for Toru as well) to distinguish reality from fantasy. To complicate matters further, Toru's own story is frequently interspersed with other characters who wander in and out of the narrative to share their own tales, some of which are among the most fascinating and haunting in the entire book. (No spoilers....)

In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, the reader is treated to the very best of Murakami. There is more than a hint of Kafka in the constant overlap between reality and fantasy, combined with the recurring elements of the surreal. However, the language throughout has a straightforward and concrete brutality that renders the more poetic and visceral sequences extremely vivid. (The scene in the zoo is particularly memorable......another unforgettable scene is recounted by a war veteran...enough said....!)

Even with the occasionally uneven narrative and the difficulty in fully grasping the absolute needs or desires of the protagonist (if he indeed has any), this book remains one of my all-time favorites, and I recommend it without hesitation.

Good Lord, it's been over a month since I've finished a book. What have I been doing with my life?

And why haven't I read this book until now?

First off, let me put my four-star rating of this book into context. It's only four stars because I feel like I need to read it again, and maybe again and again, to truly appreciate all that is contained within these 600 beautiful pages. I get the story. There's a plot and all that, but there is also so much more going on. There are so many layers, such complexity woven into the fabric of the story that I don't think I can truly appreciate it just reading it one time through.

The beginning of the story is very straightforward and instantly creates this weird vibe. This dude, Toru, loses his cat so he goes out to look for it. He likes spaghetti and lemon drops. He gets these strange calls at home. He finds an old abandoned house with a well. His wife is kind of like whatever. He doesn't have a job. So, you know, I'm putting all that together in my mind as I'm reading it, right? Pretty simple. This is a book about an unemployed guy searching for his cat while getting weird phone calls, making spaghetti, and getting advice from his wife on how to find the cat. Sounds like an awesome way to spend the next two weeks of my life.

But, I'll be damned if the missing cat isn't even the issue. From there things spiral out of control and all of a sudden I'm bouncing around from these old war stories to the bottom of a well to working with a girl and counting the number of bald men on the street to a bunch of other stuff that I don't want to spoil for you. About halfway through I'm thinking to myself, "Self, this plot doesn't matter. These characters are more metaphorical or something. This book is smarter than you. Here's another war story followed by a letter to read. You don't really understand this book at all, do you?"

At times I got frustrated because I was focused on moving along the plot and Murakami would ping pong around to other topics for a while. Some of the stories went on for a while, some of them were just a few quick pages, but I found myself reading it trying to find a big plot twist or something when that was never the intent. The story and the characters are there to tell a bigger story that transcends the pages of the book.

Once I figured that out, I feel like I still missed a lot. I gotta read this again, man. I feel like if I could read the beginning again now that I know everything, it would make the experience so much richer, so much sweeter. Murakami writes in a way that makes you feel like you're dreaming, moving along different scenes and stories effortlessly, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. It was a surreal experience to take all of this in. It's unlike any book I've read before, and it made me think deeper about life and pain and loss and love and all those hard realities we get to confront on this journey. It was definitely a thrilling and rewarding experience.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Y'all need to get some more Murakami in your life. This guy is the real deal. His writing style is unique and captivating, drawing you in and making you want to explore every nook and cranny of his fictional worlds. Whether it's the strange and wonderful characters or the complex and thought-provoking themes, Murakami's books have something for everyone. So don't be afraid to take the plunge and give one of his books a try. You won't be disappointed.

I vividly remember a senior of mine once making a profound statement.

"The problem with reading Murakami," he said, "is that you always end up wondering if you've ever truly felt anything in life."

At that time, I hadn't delved into the works of Murakami, so naturally, I couldn't fully understand or connect with his words.

However, now that I have immersed myself in Murakami's literary world, I must admit that my senior was absolutely right.

Murakami's writing has this unique power to make you question your own emotions and experiences.

His stories are filled with complex characters and situations that force you to reflect on your own life and the feelings that lie within.

As you read, you find yourself lost in a web of emotions, not quite sure if what you're feeling is real or just a product of the author's imagination.

It's a strange and yet captivating experience that leaves you with a sense of wonder and a newfound appreciation for the depth and complexity of human emotions.

RTC.

I used to love looking at her at the dining table

and she would talk passionately about her work. I would say to myself:

"This is (the home)..."

The dining table was like a special place where I could observe her in all her glory. Her eyes would light up as she described the details of her job, and I was completely captivated.

As I listened to her, I couldn't help but feel a sense of warmth and contentment. This was the home I had always dreamed of, a place filled with love and shared interests.

In those moments, I knew that I wanted to be a part of her life, to support her in her endeavors and to build a future together.

The simple act of sitting at the dining table and listening to her talk made me realize how much I truly cared for her.

And I was determined to make this feeling last a lifetime.

I’ve heard an abundance of hyperbole regarding this book and this author, which led me to anticipate it being mediocre. However, “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami truly lived up to the praise that has been lavished upon it. It most definitely falls into the category of Literature with a capital “L”.

If there isn't a literary category known as “Japanese Gothic Surrealism,” then Murakami has surely invented it. One could potentially spend months dissecting and analyzing this novel. It is rich with symbolism and has numerous layers of meaning. It blurs the boundaries between realism and surrealism, with the natural world and the supernatural world intersecting. Nothing is neatly packaged and presented to the reader. Instead, it contains stories within stories within stories.

“The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is by no means an easy book to read. Nevertheless, it is captivating. I would set it aside only to find myself irresistibly drawn to pick it back up and continue reading. I do not recommend this novel to anyone who desires to be simply entertained by a book. This book is challenging in both style and substance. If you seek a book that will provide you with a literary workout, this is the one to choose.

My complete review is published by Before We Go Blog.

“Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.”

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a remarkable masterpiece of magical realism. It has firmly established Japanese author Haruki Murakami as one of the world’s most prominent voices in speculative fiction and a consistent contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I first came across Murakami’s work in my early twenties. After graduating from college, I voraciously consumed all his published works. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle quickly became my favorite novel, influencing me in subtle yet profound ways that have now become an integral part of who I am.

I have revisited The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle every decade since my initial read in 2004. Although it is the same book, it feels different each time. My format for this review is directly inspired by Mark Lawrence’s recent short story, “About Pain,” which contains the following insightful quote: “You cannot read the same book twice. When you return to the first page it will be a different ‘you’, changed by the very experiences you are seeking to recapture.” (Mark Lawrence)

2004: After rekindling my passion for reading in college, I was fortunate to discover a long list of novels that I adored. These were books where I felt a deep personal connection with the characters and the themes being explored. Most importantly, they were books that made me think in a new way, broadening and deepening my understanding of our place in the world and our relationships with one another.

When people ask me which book is my all-time favorite, I don’t always give the same answer. It depends on my mood and there is also some recency bias depending on which books I have recently enjoyed. However, in my heart, I know that I have converged on an answer: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. After reading this book, I felt like a different person, more attuned to the ways in which people interact and the hidden metaphysical reality beneath our everyday lives.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extremely difficult book to summarize, with numerous disparate plot lines that all come together at the end. I won’t attempt to write a detailed plot summary or even a character summary. What stands out to me the most is how Murakami skillfully blurs the line between the real and the surreal. The main protagonist, Toru Okada, is so passive in the physical world and can only grow by entering the metaphysical realm, as described in the quote: “In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.”

Murakami effectively employs magical realism in this novel, as he does in many of his others. But The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is somehow unique. The magical elements are not simply meant to be fantasy; they are intended to represent a deeper level of our true reality.

It’s challenging to describe just how much The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle means to me or how significantly it has impacted me. I feel that it has deepened my consciousness and, in doing so, made me a better person in some small way.

2014: A decade older. Am I ten years wiser or just more jaded?

I’ve read many great books over the past ten years, yet The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle remains my favorite. However, it seems much darker this second time around.

Ten years ago, I would have told you that the main theme of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was transcendence: the process of discovering our true selves by delving deep into our souls, perhaps with a little help from some unlikely friends. But I now realize that I missed the point.

Returning to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in my thirties, I see that the overarching theme is cruelty: not the cruelty of an uncaring universe, but rather the cruelty that people inflict on each other, whether purposefully or carelessly.

Murakami explores cruelty on both a personal and a global level. There is the small-scale cruelty that occurs within relationships. When the novel opens, the narrator (Toru) is fixated on the search for his lost cat. However, he is focused on the what rather than the why. Toru should be asking why the cat left in the first place, as this seemingly insignificant event is a precursor to the breakdown of his marriage with his wife, Kumiko. The quote “I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.” highlights the pain and cruelty within their relationship.

Kumiko’s troubles stem from the inexplicable cruelty inflicted on her by her brother, Noburo, a slick, media-savvy politician who is well-loved by the public but is also a sadistic abuser, especially towards his two sisters. Noburo’s abuse is cruelty for the sake of cruelty, committed by a twisted soul.

Murakami pairs these personal stories of cruelty with the violence committed on a much larger scale during World War II. There is a clear political aspect to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, with Murakami criticizing his own government for its reluctance to admit its atrocities during the war, issue apologies, and make reparations. I truly admire what Murakami is doing here, bringing the atrocities of the war to the forefront and urging the public to confront this cruel past.

Murakami doesn’t limit his criticism to Japanese violence during World War II. On the other side of the war, the Soviets were equally cruel. In the novel, the embodiment of this cruelty is Boris the Manskinner. The scenes with Boris are some of the most excruciating in the entire book and have left a lasting impression on my memory.

2024: I keep coming back to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a book that has left a permanent mark on me, much like the blue mark on the face of our protagonist, Toru, after his transcendent experience at the bottom of the well. Reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle feels like coming home, but it’s not the home I remember. The quote “Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.” captures this sense of change and permanence.

May Kasahara has always been one of my favorite characters in the book. A sixteen-year-old girl obsessed with aging and death, she is a vibrant presence in this bleak world, despite having a bit of a sadistic streak, as shown in her question: “You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, I sometimes wonder what it must feel like to die little by little over a long period of time. What do you think?”

It’s strange that despite May’s obsession with aging, she is the same age as when I first picked up the book in 2004. Instead, it is this unsuspecting reader who has aged twenty years. I must admit that as a younger man, I missed the essence of this novel.

It’s about pain. It’s the pain of being human, a pain that is central to our existence. We try to escape this pain, but the only way to do so is to abandon our very selves. Consider this quote from Creta Kano, who endured unspeakable cruelty but eventually numbed herself from the pain: “A life without pain: it was the very thing I had dreamed of for years, but now that I had it, I couldn’t find a place for myself within it.”

In my twenties, I thought that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was about transcendence. But it’s not about transcendence; it’s about acceptance. We become better people by accepting our identities, becoming truer versions of ourselves while also becoming more aware and understanding of each other.

We all experience pain: it is part of our shared existence. The core message of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is that there is hope in suffering. We become better people by looking inward to discover a truer sense of ourselves, but more importantly, by looking outward at the people we love, the people we hate, and the strangers we pass on the street who may be future friends.

I know that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is the same book I read twenty years ago, but it feels different each time. What will I learn from this book in ten years’ time? I have no idea, but I hope that I will have grown as a person by then.

I also hope that, by next time, the Nobel Prize committee will have finally recognized Haruki Murakami’s genius and honored him for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a novel that remains unparalleled more than twenty years after its original publication.

Murakami is a renowned novelist, and the length of his novels is often quite substantial at first glance. Take "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" for example, which has nearly seven hundred pages and is no exception to this rule. However, from the very opening lines, one can sense that it won't be a difficult read. This is because one is immediately drawn in by the semi-existential and half-existentialist atmosphere that surrounds the story.

Once again, we are tasked with following a narrator whose ordinary life gradually descends into the Symbolist surreal. At the beginning, it starts with a simple matter of a lost cat and some strange anonymous phone calls. But then, strange characters begin to emerge one by one. There is a prince of artful media, a young and dapper yet mischievous teen, two medium sisters with unclear aspirations, and a wounded veteran of the Sino-Japanese wars. All of these characters have destinies that are irreversibly changed by the power of the spirit.

With his fluid and pure writing style, the author effortlessly guides us through the meanderings of the soul and the sinuosities of history. He presents us with an altered truth that we accept without hesitation. But as he himself states, truth is not always found in reality. It is this unique ability to blend the real and the surreal that makes Murakami's novels so captivating and thought-provoking.

Do you know, never in my life have I actually gotten what I wanted. Never. Do you believe it? You can't understand the meaning of life like this. What it's like to get used to a life where you never get anything you want, until you even lose the ability to know what you want.

Reading "Haruki" has become one of my favorite pastimes. I hold the book, wearing 3D glasses, and "Haruki" draws for me worlds of characters, relationships, and strange possible events, in a very stylish way. There is no boredom here. Here there is pure pleasure.

In these first and second diaries out of three, "Haruki" deals with the life of an ordinary person, an ordinary employee, who marries an ordinary employee... The events start with a slightly unusual incident like the disappearance of their cat... and then a series of unusual events follow... events that will take your breath away as you follow them, and strange surprises keep coming one after another.

But this is not the best thing that Haruki has. The best thing that Haruki has is the psychological distance with which he colors his characters, shades them, and forms their relationships. The characters may seem unusual, but in fact, in all things, they are very ordinary. I expect that Haruki has a magical perspective; it makes him look at things and understand them in a different way from what we know and understand, and then he writes about them as he sees them. For example, Haruki's view of sex is different, interesting, and exciting... it raises philosophical questions about the nature of sex itself, the feeling about it, and the influence and the actual impact through its shadows. Many books write about sex, but only Haruki can connect sex with the different colors of his characters. Each of them has their own way, and only when the bodies are stripped; the characters show their true inner nature, without any lies or deception or fraud. Haruki makes us see that and makes us understand that through his characters. I don't want to make this review worthy of the title: In the love of Haruki Murakami; but I can't hide the great impact that he has on me when I read him.

"Can a person really understand another person completely?"

Despite our ability to spend a long time and a huge amount of energy in good attempts to know another person, but in the end, to what extent can we approach their essence? We constantly convince ourselves that we know the other person truly, but do we really know anything important about anyone?

"Haruki" weaves into his events the concept of human relationships. Do we really understand humans? Can you clearly and definitely state that you understand a certain person completely? No matter how close you are to them? Even if you sacrifice your own life; believe me, you still won't understand them. There is a state of confusion that befalls us if we discover the deception of a certain person. This confusion stems from the fact that we never expected that the person we relied on to save us is the one who caused our drowning and deception. This is a cruel contrast; but it is very sad.

And Toro's relationship with his wife came to make us understand that and fear its existence; that even marriage is no longer enough to understand ourselves? The closest relationships are marriage and yet we don't know what goes on inside the other side... Isn't that scary? Doesn't it cause fear, hesitation, and disappointment? So for whom will we confide our binding secrets when we can't even express them to the closest people to us?

"There is no doubt about it, then, a whole day has passed. But my absence probably had no effect on anyone. No one will notice that I was absent. If I disappeared from the face of the earth, the world would go on as if nothing had happened. It's true that things are very complicated, but the clear thing is that no one needed me."

And Haruki completes the third side of the hazy triangle of the novel; which is: loneliness.

Loneliness is the disease of the era; because this feeling is not -exclusively- that you feel it when you are alone only, but you can feel it when there are many people around you.

But "Haruki" must connect loneliness with loss; loss of death or loss of betrayal or loss of indifference... Loneliness must be closely related to disappointment. Isn't the feeling of loneliness and the pain of its nights enough? For Haruki, no, he adds to it the pain of memories that tear your chest with the sharpness of their scratches.

"The danger for me now is that I have never clearly said to anyone in my life (I want to do that). In fact, I haven't even said it to myself (I want to do that). Because since the moment I was born, I have lived with pain at the core of my life. My only goal in life was to find a way to live with that intense pain."

And all the sides of the triangle are related to pain; the pain of sex is the pain of pleasure and delight, the pain of relationships is the pain of fear and anticipation, and the pain of loneliness is the pain that destroys the heart and soul...

And those twists and turns and the controlled narration that runs through them without any of my own pain, Haruki leads you as a guide on the journey, and you want to extend that journey forever; you don't want it to end.

A beautiful and enjoyable novel, I will still remember many of its details... and I hope that the third part of the diaries will be published as soon as possible... so that we can complete this enjoyable journey.

And as for the translation; it is one of the most beautiful translations that I have read... a reliable and pure translation with a great deal of effort invested in it and the name of the translator "Ahmed Hassan Al-Ma'ini" will become one of my favorite translators.

Emphasis is recommended.

I’m out of sync with reading Murakami. While everyone else is engrossed in “Killing Commendatore”, I’m still delving into a novel of his that was published over two decades ago. That’s perhaps an allegory for my life in general.

I’ve approached my reading of Murakami’s novels with caution. I started with two of his more realist works before embarking on this long, complex, and highly surreal book. It incorporates clairvoyants, mediums, and mysterious connections between different generations. The other Murakami novels I’ve read had a blurring between the world of dreams and the real world, but this one presents full-blown alternate realities. After finishing, I was left with the sense that there were numerous messages and hidden meanings that eluded my understanding.

At the beginning, the lead character, Toru Okada, appears listless and enervated. He formerly held a low-status job as an office dogsbody in a legal firm, but he has quit and is now living on unemployment insurance and his wife’s salary. He spends his days performing mundane tasks and taking long naps in between. From very early on, we get the impression that his wife is hiding something from him. As the novel progresses, Okada is drawn into increasingly strange scenarios involving a succession of enigmatic, mostly female, characters. He is also in conflict with his brother-in-law, Noburu Wataya, someone he intensely dislikes. Wataya seems to have some sort of power to influence or even control others.

The novel is set in 1984, and that’s significant as there is a strong theme related to Japan’s former colony of Manchukuo (Manchuria). One of the female characters, the colorfully named Nutmeg Akasaka, spent her childhood in Manchukuo, and there is a strange connection between her father and Okada, the reason for which remains unexplained (at least, I think it is). Okada also meets the elderly Lt. Mamiya, who served in the Imperial Japanese Army in Manchukuo. There are many parallels between the Lieutenant’s life and Okada’s. During his time in Manchuria, the Lieutenant encounters a terrifying and malevolent Soviet Army officer, known as Boris the Manskinner. In many ways, Mamiya’s conflict with the Manskinner mirrors the conflict between Okada and Wataya.

And what is the symbolic meaning of the wind-up bird in the title? It appears at various points in the narrative but can only be heard by certain characters, and the reader is informed that it is a herald of disaster. There are numerous references in the novel to fate and to the lives of characters being foretold. Is the sound of the wind-up bird the sound of someone’s fate being prepared?

In the end, I was left a bit confused. For all that, the novel held my attention throughout. I was particularly impressed with the segments set in Manchuria. The translator, Jay Rubin, deserves a big shout-out for making the English version so readable. I considered a three-star rating but ultimately went for four stars because, quite simply, I found it a really good read.

**Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru = The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami**

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a captivating novel published in 1994–1995 by the renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

The first part, "The Thieving Magpie", commences with the narrator, Toru Okada, a rather unassuming unemployed lawyer's assistant. His wife, Kumiko, tasks him with finding their missing cat. She suggests looking in the alley behind their house, a secluded strip of land.

Toru spends some time there without any success. Then, May Kasahara, a teenager who has been observing him camping out in the alley, approaches and questions him. She invites him to her house to sit on the patio and look over an abandoned house that she claims is a popular haunt for stray cats.

The abandoned house seems to hold some strange omen as it has brought misfortune to all its previous tenants. It also contains an empty well, which Toru later uses to crawl into and think. Toru starts receiving sexual phone calls from a mysterious woman who says she knows him. Additionally, he gets a phone call from Malta Kano asking to meet with him.

In Iran, the book has been published under various titles such as "سرگذشت پرنده کوکی", "وقایع‌نگاری پرنده کوکی", and "تاریخچه پرنده‌ی کوکی". It has been translated by different individuals and published by various publishers.

The story is about a jobless man named Toru Okada, but a series of events reveals that his simple and mundane life is much more complicated than it appears.

In 1984, in Japan, Aomame gets out of a taxi in the middle of Tokyo traffic as she doesn't want to miss a very important appointment. She uses the bridges to get to the bus and unknowingly enters a parallel world. It is only on the second look that she notices small changes like the "different uniforms of the police". She encounters a group that she has never heard of before. She arrives at her appointment just in time and in a hotel, she stabs a man with a very small knife. Suddenly, two months fall from the sky.

Murakami, on the other hand, dedicates a part of the story to an amateur writer named Tengo. When Tengo accepts the commission to rewrite the first novel of a seventeen-year-old named Fukaeri, titled "Air Chrysalis", strange and unusual things happen. In this book, not only the spiritual nature like "Little People" is revealed, but also a religious group with horrifying rituals. When this book becomes a great success, it seems as if the story is about to merge with reality.

Murakami skillfully weaves the strands of the plot in alternating chapters to create a fascinating story. Soon it becomes clear that his protagonists are known as students and are not forgotten in the passage of time.

Jobless, Toru Okada spends the majority of his days engaged in the search for his missing cat. This routine continues until the fateful day when his wife also vanishes. The questions start to pile up. Why did she leave? Did she truly ever love him? And can Toru manage to find his way through this vast ocean of strangeness to bring her back?

When I first became a member of Goodreads, one of the initial things that caught my attention was the remarkable amount of praise that a novel I had never even heard of, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, received from Goodreaders. Was it mere hype? Or perhaps something worse, just a form of hipster nonsense? You know the kind I'm referring to. "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 acquaintance who, it seems, has since deleted his account after I purchased this book, I made the decision to part with my money and give it a try. So, what were my thoughts? I liked it but don't start imagining me in skinny jeans and a distressed faux-vintage t-shirt just yet.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extremely easy and enjoyable read, which is quite surprising considering it was translated from Japanese. It chronicles the disintegration of Toru Okada's life, beginning with his resignation from his job at the law firm, followed by the disappearance of the family cat, Noboru Wataya, named after his wife's brother, and finally, the vanishing of his wife Kumiko one morning. From that point on, things become stranger with each passing minute. Toru becomes involved with a kind of psychic therapist, Malta Kano, and her sister Creta, and also strikes up an unusual friendship with the peculiar girl next door, May Kasahara. And that's before the really weird events start to unfold.

Weird books are my specialty, so the strangeness did not in any way detract from my enjoyment. A plethora of crazy things occurred, and the book maintained my interest throughout. The writing is truly wonderful. I was able to feel Toru's emotions as he experienced them, and I found his reactions to be highly believable. When I read Kumiko's letter explaining why she left, I felt as betrayed as Toru must have felt.

As I mentioned earlier, I liked it but I didn't love it. There were numerous strange happenings, and a great deal of it remained unresolved. While I did enjoy the digressions into World War II, they seemed unnecessary to me. I suppose my main gripe was that I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Certainly, it is very well written, but considering its 600-page length, it doesn't have a great deal of substance. It reminds me of Douglas Coupland and/or Neal Stephenson once they had obtained the editorial freedom to write whatever they pleased. I never once considered taking days off work just to read it, nor did I feel as though it was a life-altering event.

That's about all I can express regarding The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at this moment. It's good, but not outstanding. Not as mind-blowingly awesome as I had been led to believe. Nevertheless, it is definitely still worth a read.