Review of 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

wind_up_bird.jpg Toru Okada is a young man living with his wife in a Tokyo apartment who has recently quit his job “for no particular reason”. After their cat, named after his brother-in-law (“Noboru Wataya”), goes missing Toru's life takes a turn for the weird: A telephone call from an unknown woman seeming to want to “understand him” with telephone sex; Meeting an odd young girl who thinks well beyond her years in a house off the alley behind his house; A war veteran (friend of Toru and his wife's former – now deceased – psychic) who wants to share his traumatic experiences in China (Manchuria) in 1931/32. Taking a cue from the veteran Toru finds solace and introspection by sitting at the bottom of a dry well in the yard of an abandoned house (as you do). After his wife mysteriously disappears Toru is completely at a loss. While trying to make sense of things and figure out what to do next, he spends some time watching pedestrians outside a subway station where he meets a wealthy woman that sells “personal services” (but not quite what you think) to wealthy clients. Will he be able to find his wife, his cat, and, more importantly, his sense of some sort of “normality”? Unlikely, but it will probably be an interesting trip…

To me, this is a story of a man trying to put his life back together after everything he knows as normal disappears from all around him. From the odd people and situations that happen he learns about himself (and his wife) but mostly it seems he is simply a passenger on a very odd ride. I am not entirely sure that Toru is entirely likable but certainly as a reader you want him to figure things out. Occasionally there are scenes of extreme violence or sex which add a sense of realism but also of the unreal as, after all, much of what happens seems incredibly bizarre. As the novel progresses all of these things come together and even begin to make some sort of sense. But even so…

One of the extremely odd things I noticed is the way that Toru does not really seem to find these things around him as in any way terribly unusual. He just sort of seems to accept whatever comes his way much like the way he seems to have lived his life, coasting along and just being but not really “living”. This makes the whole story even more surreal. It is this lack of surprise in the face of increasing levels of oddness made the book so compelling. The blurb on the back of the book says there is “comedy” but I can't say I found too much here…Perhaps this is meant ironically?

Murakami is a master of modern literature that I think is somewhat under recognized in the west. I found this novel incredibly readable and enthralling from the very first page. At 607 pages it is not a small book, but it is certainly worth a read, though not Murakami's best.

Rating: “Really good but I have some issues”

Review Date: 2016-05-20


Genre: General Fiction

Publisher: Vintage International

Publication Date: 1997

ISBN: 9780679775430


Other reviewed books by Haruki Murakami: