The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel

I ordered the hardcover and got a used paperback version which is readily available for purchase anywhere, at the out of print hardcover price. First time experience buying from this site and I must say, I am extremely disappointed. For those who know, out of print hardcover Murakami books are not cheap. I am an avid reader and collector of books. I am sorely disappointed with this experience and will reconsider shopping here again.

great book, not what i expected at all. not really like any book i’ve read before

Another reviewer has mentioned that far from being a scattered collection of independent incidents strung together by the coincidence of the central character's involvement, Murakami's "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" is unified by means of its insistence on the problem of evil and what to do about it. Surely this is moving towards a clear understanding of the novel. Evil, though, is a such a culturally grounded concept. Is evil sin? Maybe in monotheistic cultures, but I think in Murakami's novelistic universe--and this is a recurring feature of many discussions of Japanese religion, culture, and art--a more insightful way of comprehending evil is as "defilement," and this is the term Jay Rubin uses in his translation time and again. Defilement is what ties every character together: some inner filth that each character is trying to purge in some way. May Kasahara's idea of the physical manifestation of death as an oozy gray thing is the clearest picture we have of that unrelenting ghost that haunts everyone intersecting with Toru Okada's life. It is not regret or guilt. It is not emotional scarring. It is a sickening tangible object poisoning a person's life and threatening to overwhelm it. It must be washed off, or it will destroy whatever it comes in contact with. Because defilement is such a defining feature of the work, it functions to create two broad sets of characters: the defilers and the defiled, where Kumiko's brother (Noboru Wataya) is the archetype of the defiler and Kumiko herself the archetype of the defiled. Confusion arises and the border between the two sets becomes blurred because the nature of defilement is to spread, and once Kumiko herself becomes defiled, she spreads that to those around her, principally to the central character, her husband Toru. The third character type is found in Toru, whose beautiful quality is to absorb all the defilement, find a way to stop the spread of it, and then to wash it away, to expunge it in the final defeat of Noboru Wataya. Toru's beautiful quality is not easily won, though. The whole of "Wind-up Bird" tells of the immensely difficult quest for it, an encountering of many different faces of defiler and defiled, a repeated tasting of others' defilements, in order to learn the method of purification. In a sense, then, "Wind-up Bird" is a classic love triangle, but it has been made archetypal: the defiled is fought over between the defiler and the purifier. Because of its reduction to the archetypal, all defiled characters are functionally the same, and all defilers are functionally the same. Malta Kano and Creta Kano, May Kasahara and Lieutenant Mamiya are all defiled; Noboru Wataya and the Russian intelligence officer, the woman on the phone and the man with the baseball bat are all defilers. Faces shift; functions remain the same. In every story, Toru is fighting for Kumiko, trying to wash out the defilement she is letting herself be destroyed by. In every story, Noboru W

Many of the previous reviews do a great job of discussing this novel, and I will not repeat that discussion here. But what the previous reviews do not mention is that the American publishers, Knopf, forced Murakami and his translator, Jay Rubin, to significantly abridge the original Japanese text. The casual reader would have no way of knowing this, and, indeed, I only noticed because I was reading alternating chapters of the book in English and Russian translations. Half-way through the novel, entire chapters suddenly started disappearing from the English-language text. Puzzled, I went back to the copyright page of the English-language edition, where, for the first time, I noticed the cryptic notation that the book was not only translated but also "adapted from the Japanese." How much of the original text was "adapted" away? I don't read Japanese, but, based on a comparison with my Russian-language translation, which appears to be complete (no Russian publisher would commit such a travesty on an award-winning novel), it seems that something like 15-20% of the text has been cut. For those of you who find the English-language text of the "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" choppy, or puzzling, or seemingly incomplete, at least some of the blame lies at the feet of the American publishers who decided, unilaterally, that American readers cannot handle a long book. Anyway, the upshot is that if you can comfortably do so, try to read the "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" in a non-English translation. Or, if you can't, demand that Jay Rubin's original and complete English-language translation be published.

I should say that half way through The Wind-Up Bird, I read over some reviews to get a feel for what other people think. Unfortunately, many were intent on giving the story away. Quite simply, it is best not to know the story line in advance. This is not a book one could possibly rationalize and understand without having first experienced it. More to the point, such analysis will only detract from the experience of reading the book in the first place. Encountering The Wind-Up-Bird Chronicle is like encountering a delicate origami crane for the first time. From the very beginning, you wonder how it got in that shape. You wish to know the secret of its structure. To do so, you must work at it slowly and carefully, undoing each fold with the utmost care and caution in order to discover the pain-staking sequence that led to its beautifully complex and elegant shape. Reading The Wind-Up-Bird is like unfolding a bigger, more-complex crane -- so complex in fact that you might be confused when the entire thing is laid out in front of you, creases spanning the entire page. If you are like me, you might spend weeks or months trying to figure out how to put that crane back together. Without giving too much away, allow me to share some of the things that engaged and enwrapped me: * The possibility that every experience in our life contains deep and profound philosophical meaning.* Discovering the mysterious nature of life and the vagaries of chance fate; realizing that the place we inhabit and the family we are born into are givens that guide us, not things we can ultimately choose. * Questioning the extent to which we can fully understand other people -- from the man why walks by us in the street to the significant other who sleeps on the other side of our bed.* Realizing the deep and intricate continuity between dreams and waking life. More to the point, discovering how the two realities affect each other and blend together in a seamless fabric called reality. * The possibility that our most profound insights about life might only be found in the bottom of a dry well in a deep meditative, trance-like state. * Finally, the book made realize that a story is quite possibly the best tool with which to convey historical reality. Sounds strange, I'm sure, but after doing a lot of deep research about Japan's involvement in Manchuria during WWII, Murakami is perhaps in the best possible position to give voice to what is often omitted from non-fiction historical texts, simply because history (which is almost infinite) is never fully uncovered or told by finite, fallible and imperfect historians. Hmm, I suppose I should discuss names a bit too. All Japanese names have meaning as written in kanji. Tanaka means 'in the rice field'. Kobayashi means 'small forest'. O'Hara means 'big field'. It wasn't until the entrance of Mr. Ushikawa (bull river) that I remembered this and began to wonder how each character's name was written in the original

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle begins with a pot of spaghetti about to boil over as the voluntarily out of work protagonist, Toru Okada parries an anonymous obscene phone call just in time to receive a call from his wife, Kumiko, who orders him to begin a search for the couple's missing cat, Noboru Watanabe, named for her politically important brother. If the above sounds pretty breathless and confusing, you'll be surprised to learn there's a lot, lot more. The lost Noboru Watanabe is simply the device Murakami uses to set this densely-layered, often bizarre book in motion.Toru's search for the lost cat introduces him to the novel's other characters, who move in and out of his life and lead him into an ever-enlarging labyrinth. There is the Lolita-like May Kasahara, Toru's neighbor, who regards the thirty year old Toru as "interesting" and calls him Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Even more bizarre, are the two sisters and psychics, Malta and Creta Kano, who invade Toru's dreams as well as his reality. (After having psychic sex with Toru, Creta later appears naked in his bed, and, as to how she got there, she doesn't have a clue.)In the meantime, Toru's wife, Kumiko disappears, much to the delight of her politician brother, who detests Toru and vice versa. And, by the way, the politician brother just happened to have raped Creta!When Toru learns Kumiko has left him for a man who's better in bed, he's surprisingly surprised, although he shouldn't be and neither should we; signs of her adultery have been rampant.With nothing else to do about the matter, Toru lowers himself to the bottom of an empty well, the better to meditate on his unpredictable predicament. But May takes the ladder away and three days later, after Creta has rescued him, Toru emerges with a blue mark on his face, one that gives him special healing powers.At this point things really become confused.Toru's mark of healing is recognized by Nutmeg Akasako as being similar to the one her father bore. Lt. Mamiya has also entered the story, recounting a fantastic tale of wartime espionage that just happens to involve time spent at the bottom of a well!Much in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle develops around the elements of chance, destiny and responsibility. Characters drift in and out of Toru's life, yet each pulls him into his or her own world. Some may think this novel tends to digress a bit too much, but that's all a part of Murakami's trademark, for he's well-known to prefer freefalling through his work rather than planning it out carefully. The result, however, is a cumulative effect of bizarre happenings and black comedy, with Toru being the integral link. Although a recurring theme in Murakami's oeuvre is that of childishness, Toru is, at times, both childish in his innocence and cynical in his outlook regarding his fellow man.Toru is a protagonist who sees, hears, feels and reacts, rather than does. He attracts a large assortment of unusual characters

This book was one of the weirdest and finest books I have read. The experiences were a surreal convoluted epic that I wish hadn't ended. The story starts off simply enough about Mr. Okada losing his cat, then his wife, and then finally his own mind. In a bizarre fashion all of the odd characters and situations that Okada finds himself in are all related in some way which is eventually summed together at the end. What was most fascinating is the elements of Buddhism, the search for nothingness to really get in touch with one's consciousness. Okada finds the strength and ability to achieve `emptiness' at the bottom of a dark well. In the well, the author puts us in touch with the most bizarre adventures in Okada's consciousness. This is the first time I have read a book by a Japanese author. Just as each culture has their own unique style of writing (the Russians with their incredibly complex characters) this Japanese author had a wonderful surreal simplicity to the writing that made you want to never put the book down. I highly recommend the book - it is incredibly easy to read, but so complex in thought. I have every intention of reading more of Murakami!