-
A GOOD, LONG READ
“The Windup Bird Chronicle
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-29.
WBC begins as a simple story of a happily married man (Toru Okada) who wakes up one day to find his wife (Kumiko) has left him. An old friend (Lt. Mamiya) of Kumiko's family mystic(Mr. Honda) comes by to bring Toru an inheritance from Mr. Honda - an empty box. From there on, the story switches between the present (Toru's search for Kumiko); flashbacks of various characters; and magic realism (Toru's dreamlike journeys into an alternate universe.)
If you can't handle multiple viewpoints of a multitude of characters, time and dimensional shifts, then read another book. Personally, it didn't bother me, because I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy. I shift mental gears easily. Magic realism is a literary variation of fantasy.
WBC is a book, which even if you read the end before you reach it, you will still be surprised at how you arrive at it. Another reviewer said that the American publisher insisted on cutting about 100 pages out. This is a 607 page book, I wonder what was deleted. WBC is a long, interesting read, but you won't read it all in one sitting. There are too much information and too many plot twists to absorb that quickly.
Note: Murikami's use of magic realism in WBC is a precursor to his use of magic realism in his more recent After Midnight. In any case, ifyou want a good long read, which will keep wondering what?, then read The Windup Bird Chronicle.
” -
Murakami: Love Him Or Hate Him, You Can't Deny Him
“Upon completion of this novel, I was furious. I felt as though I had been ripped off or worse, (and at the risk of sounding melodramatic...) as though someone I cared deeply for had wounded me. I branded Murakami a dilettante and moved on. However, this brash indictment didn't stick for long.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-13.
A great many people really hate this book, and an equal number adore it. I'm somewhere in the middle, closer to those who loved it then not. I enjoyed the book while reading it in spite of its occasionally tedious nature. There's a lot of dream/reality convergence, magically real oddities, and detailed historical factoids, and one has no idea what is actually occurring for quite some time. Murakami's writing is nonetheless powerful and I found myself caring deeply about a number of the characters despite the lack of in depth exposition or revelation that is so common with other novelists. It works to his advantage here, I think, as the writing is quite cinematic in scope and brings to mind a number of arthouse films that are decidedly more atmospheric than plot-based. There is an undeniable, inherent poeticism in the words that I found rather poignant, even in the context of the narrator performing simple and mundane activities, perhaps even more so in these moments.
I was unsatisfied and disappointed in bits of the ending, not because things weren't wrapped up in a neat bow (frankly, I don't see how he could have endeavored to do so without completely destroying the world he had created, and generally speaking, I'm not a fan of narratives that favor this neatly conclusive approach), but as a result of what I felt were some hastily attended to narrative points. He spends so much time establishing various elements of an incredibly complex narrative, and in such great, at times painstaking (for him, not on my end, mind you) depth, and I felt the resolution could have been tended to with the same care and detail. It felt a bit rushed, frankly. I should mention that this sentiment of mine may very well be a result of portions of the novel being omitted from American reproductions/translations.
That being said, this is an absurdly ambitious novel and I think Murakami is successful for the most part. The blending of surrealism, magical realism, and Japanese history, the switches in perspective (the point of view shifts from that of the narrator to letters sent to him from a supporting "cast" member to stories told to him by other supporting players), the noirish elements... it's all there and it's all good stuff.
I need to read more of his work before my opinion of him is cemented, but I am eager to do so, which is perhaps a sign of the positive effect his writing has had on me thus far. All in all, I'd recommend The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but perhaps not without a brief preface regarding my "issues" with it.” -
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I EVER READ!
“IT was a little expensive for what it was worth for, but boy oh' boy was it a great book to read”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-09-10. -
0 of 1 members found this review helpful.
The Wind-Up Bird
“Wow! This took quite a while to get through, and in small doses. I read it because my book club picked it. I really didn't get into it until the last half, and I kept reading because I thought sooner or later it would make sense. I think the book was probably fine - I'm just not crazy about this sytle, topic, or writer.”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-09-04. -
A tapestry, a puzzle, a bizzare work of art
“Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a wonderfully written, complex and confusing tapestry of bizarre characters and cryptic metaphors. Perhaps I'm not quite smart enough to piece together everything Murakami is trying to say in this epic volume (it would take hours of outlining and highlighting for me to decrypt this book fully), but that's okay because I'm not writing this to spoil the book anyways. And while I can't claim to know everything the author was trying to say, there is plenty in the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle that everyone should be able to take something from it.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-07-16.
Despite the fact that as the book starts it gives no hint as to where it's going, I was immediately engrossed by Murakami's characters and writing style. I had no idea what direction the book was taking and none of the events seemed to be leading toward anything substantial, but I didn't care and read on anyways. The author's style is simple but elegant, the dialogue very straightforward and strange, and each character unique and... well also strange. I'm sure some of the strangeness comes from the fact that Japanese can't possibly be translated into English precisely, but it's also apparent that Haruki Murakami has his own unique and rather odd writing voice.
At face value, the premise of this book is really simple: the main character, Toru Okada, is searching for the cat that belongs to him and his wife Kumiko. As he searches for it, he meets strange characters that help him on the way. Soon, his wife disappears as well and he ends up on a search for her instead. So if you take it all literally, the book is about Toru meeting a variety of characters as he's looking for his cat and his wife. Wind-up Bird isn't a book to be taken at face value, however, which is why the book is 600 pages and not much shorter. As I read on, I realized that it was hard to determine how much of this book is meant to be taken literally and how much was figurative for something else Murakami was trying to say entirely. Upon finishing it, a lot of these puzzle pieces seemed to fit together, and yet a lot more seemed to have no place at all. I suppose I'll have to lend this book to some people who are smarter than myself who can help me analyze it more thoroughly.
One thing that was consistent throughout the book was the plethora of enjoyable allies (and in one or two cases, enemies) that Toru Okada meets. These characters, to name a few, comprise of a psychic prostitute and her psychic sister, a marriage councilor/war veteran who may also be psychic, another war veteran friend of his who's lived an entirely lonely and empty life since returning from war, a fashion designer/healer and her mute son, a neighboring teenager who seems to understand the human condition, an evil brother in law, and many more... The only characters who seem to be "normal" in this whole mess are Kumiko and Toru himself.
This however is where I think the book is most deceiving. As he meets these seemingly random characters, it seems that each one represents a different aspect of his wife, himself and their marriage. The psychic prostitute Creta Kano seems to represent his wife physically and sexually, Lt Mayima who lives an empty life since coming back from war in Mongolia seems to represent what Toru is afraid of becoming should he lose his wife, Noboru Wataya (both Kumiko's brother and the cat they named after him) seem to represent the rift in their marriage; their cat left just before Kumiko did and Kumiko's brother was always opposed to their marriage... Most characters seemed to be a facet of Toru's life. One character I can't quite find a place for in this scheme is May Kasahara, Toru's eccentric teenage neighbor. May is easily my favorite character and her dialogues with Toru were the book's most entertaining passages to me. If anything, she seemed to ask all the questions and bring up all the topics that Toru normally wouldn't have thought of or brought up himself, so perhaps she represents some suppressed portion of his psyche and imagination. I had my pencil handy when I read those sections so I could underline some of the hilarious and genius things that May's character said.
Throughout Wind-Up bird there are certain themes that Murakami keeps coming back to. Loneliness might be the most prevalent theme throughout the book. Toru is afraid of being without his wife and the character Lt. Mayima's life of loneliness seems to be a foreshadowing to Toru if his life doesn't change. Understanding is another theme here. Murakami references on numerous occasions how no matter how well you think you know someone, they will always truly be a stranger, and yet he also conveys that you hardly need to know someone for anytime at all to know everything important about them. Fate and destiny plays a role here as well, which isn't surprising considering the number of psychic characters there are giving premonitions. Dreams are also a major piece of the puzzle that is this book, in how they are interpreted and differentiating between them and reality. And of one aspect of the book that continued to surface was the wind-up bird itself, which shows up at random intervals, revealing it's strange creaking call to various characters and yet is never truly seen.
There are still many questions I have after finishing it, such as: what purpose did the wind-up bird serve and why did it appear when it did? What exactly happened to Toru in the well? What was behind the story of the boy and the tree? Rather than frustrate me, these questions just keep me fascinated, thinking about the book more and more, even as I write this review.
This is the first of Murakami's work that I've read and I definitely will be reading more. Perhaps it would have been better to read another book or two of his first so I could get an idea of his style before tackling Wind-Up Bird, but I have no regrets. The book is insightful, humorous, imaginative and just all around enjoyable. Do I recommend this book? Yes, but only to those who would have the patience for it. It's long, cryptic and doesn't tie up in a nice package at the end (my only personal gripe came in discovering that there are two chapters from the original Japanese version that didn't make it here). But for readers of Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut and other eccentric authors, Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle might be right up your alley. ”
