by Haruki Murakami (1995)
2025 reads, 15/25:
It was a narrow world, a world that was standing still. But the narrower it became, and the more it consisted of stillness, the more this world that enveloped me seemed to overflow with things and people that could only be called strange.
On a recent trip to Japan, I was inspired to pick up a book by a famous Japanese author. Since Murakami has been on my radar for awhile, it seemed like a no brainer to purchase The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle when I saw it at Tsutaya Bookstore in Shibuya, and start my reading right then and there on the train ride back to the hotel. It grabbed my attention with a running start - the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle dives right into Murakami's unique brand of magical realism (while also making me crave spaghetti).
The premise of the book is simple: Toru Okada, a recently unemployed legal aid, loses his cat and starts to drift apart from his wife, Kumiko. In this search for the cat, characters step into his life, such as Kumiko's brother Noboru Wataya, the psychic Kano sisters, a high schooler neighbor obsessed with death, and a lieutenant who relays old war stories. I enjoyed Toru's interactions with all of these characters, as it was enlightening how they treated Toru as he searched for answers. I learned all I needed to about them based on how Toru felt after talking with them.
Unfortunately, some of the magic from the beginning is lost a bit in the middle. I wouldn't say there's a lull, but some scenes feel unnecessarily stretched out. I don't mind plot meanderings and historical flashbacks (I am a Pynchon fan, after all), but if it's going to happen, I do wish the writing style was a bit more stylish. But I must be fair: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is translated from Japanese, an entirely different language and writing system. My reading of On Haiku taught me that the Japanese language has functions, structure, and even puns that are simply untranslatable to English; they can only be appreciated in the Japanese language. So, I don't hold this against Murakami at all (and apparently, his publisher cut out some text from the original Japanese edition? Shame!).
I guess time doesn't flow in order, does it -- A, B, C, D? It just sort of goes where it feels like going.
That being said, there is a central mystery here that happens pretty early on, and my attention was kept throughout the whole novel. I found myself at work, wondering about the book: "Will the cat come back?" "What is the deal with the emptywell?" and more - Murakami knows how to pose a mystery, and the more I read the more I realized that there were connections right there from the start.
But it took awhile for me to catch on to the themes. It was about two thirds of the way through, after meeting most of the book's large cast of characters, that I realized I felt incredibly lonely. Wherever Toru went, whoever he met, they didn't seem to click with him, and it felt like no real connection was made. The only person I felt he had a connection to, Lieutenant Mamiya, mostly corresponded with him through letters. Murakami did a great job at making me, the reader, feel this isolation, and constantly hoped that Toru would be able to make connections. It's all the more relevant today, as this is a pervasive problem in modern-day Japan.
The talk of character interactions leads into a second major theme I picked up on - power. But it's not the technocratic type from large society-controlling organizations I find in Pynchon novels, no, this is an individual power, the power exerted over another person. The primary example is, of course, Noboru Wataya, and his grand influence on all who are enamored by him. But even in other characters is a common theme of those who exert their power over others: the soviet Boris, the rich telepathic Nutmeg (yes, that's her name), and Malta Kano. I have to believe there's an allegory here, strengthened by Murakami's depiction (and obvious criticism) of the horrors of World War II. Who had the power during the war? Who had the power after the war?
I was happy to finally get a chance to read what is apparently one of Murakami's best books, and my interest is piqued for more. Now that I know what I'm getting into, I'll be ready for another epic journey of a someone getting in over their head in a world that they have no control over. If you're in the mood for a story that goes places you even didn't know stories could go, pick up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
The surrounding space is so vast that it becomes more and more difficult to keep a balanced grip on one's own being. I wonder if I am making myself clear?