The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel

Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.

If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. --Simon Leake

Product Description
Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.

In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.

This is the second Murakami book I've read (first one being "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and...", which I loved). Without a doubt, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a real page-turner, but unfortunately, this page-turning doesn't really lead anywhere, which is why this is such a disappointment. Questions remain unanswered, characters vanish into thin air, things happen without as much as a hint at explanation.

Don't get me wrong: I don't expect every question to be answered completely. Sometimes using your imagination works best. I can accept that there is no explanation to things like what "tendency" it was exactly that made Kumiko disappear, what powers Noboru Wataya had, how he used them, or even how Toru got the mark... The general idea is there, and that's enough. It is not described what "work" Nutmeg and Cinnamon do, but we can use our imagination. It is not explained what "netherworld" Toru traveled to from the well, but we can use our imagination. Something to do with subconscious, human nature, the nature of reality and the consequences of our actions. OK, I can live with that. But in the end, simply TOO MUCH is left to our imagination.

I couldn't help but feel that I was reading about the same people that I read about in Hard-Boiled Wonderland. I suppose I have to read more to say for sure, but at this point I feel that Murakami's characters are very one-dimensional, and they act and speak in strange, irrational ways most of the times. Perhaps part of it is my having a Western mindset, but something tells me that's not it. Toru Okada is described as "everyman", but tell me, what "everyman" normally climbs down an old well to sit in the dark for hours on end? What sixteen-year-old virgins normally lick thirty-year-old men on the cheek without much explanation or reason? What husband usually remains absolutely emotionless after finding out that his wife of six years has misteriously disappeared? Easterner or Westerner, I don't buy this as usual human behavior. And, given that this is a first-person narrative, it's especially odd that the narrator rarely reveals any emotions. Is it done of purpose to keep up guessing, or is it the problem of Murakami's writing's style?

Brace yourself, the questions are only beginning. How did Toru get the mark and why? Who was the singer with the baseball bat, and why did he attack Toru? How did the cat manage to survive for over a year of missing, and why did it come back after all? What was Leutenant Mamiya's role in all this? What were Malta and Creta Kano's roles in all this? Why did Kumiko change all of a sudden after six years of marriage? What happened to Cinnamon as a child that made him stop speaking, and what was the significance of that bizarre "What happened in the night" chapter? Why wasn't Toru getting May Kasahara's letters? Who wrote the Chronicles stored in Cinnamon's computer and why? Why was Nutmeg's husband murdered in such a vilent and bizarre way? Who was the anonymous woman that kept calling Toru throughout the book? Who were the "holow man" and the whistling waiter? The questions are endless.

There's a saying about fiction, "If there's a gun sitting in the corner, by the end of the story it must fire". In this case, that isn't true. We keep on hearing about things that seem to bear some great significance - like Malta Kano's red hat, or the tune from The Thieving Magpie. But in the end we realize that those things are there just because it sounds cool. That is the biggest problem I have with the book. There are lots of things in it that could be edited out without having any impact on the book as a whole. The war stories are very well written, I'll give Murakami that. But take Boris the Manskinner, for example - WHY was it even there? What's the point? Take out "Creta Kano's long story", take out May Kasahara's letters, take out Cinnamon's incident when he was a child... None of those things had any point or explained anything. I'm not saying they shouldn't be there - no, I understand that the events of WWII, for instance, are tied in to our time. What I don't understand is why did Murakami had to present so many complelling characters only to have them disappear without a trace as the story unfolded.

A lot of people say that Murakami is a genius and if you didn't "get" his books then you're simply not smart enough. As an artist, I see this attitude a lot in art as well. Here's the truth: *people often say they "got it" even when they haven't, for fear of appearing stupid.*

Perhaps I really am not smart enough to "get it". But the truth is, this book made me feel like the story was written one chapter at a time - i.e., that Murakami in fact did not have the foggiest where it was going, and how it would end.

I take my hat off for Murakami's ambitiousness, imagination and vivid writing style. But to me it remains questionable whether he is truly a genius trying to convey some vastly significant message with his books (which, consequently, only a genius can truly understand, and I don't claim to be one). More often I get this very strong feeling that he is merely a very CLEVER writer who is very skilled at making a bunch of nonsense sound important and significant. Either way, I won't deny that what he does is entertaining. So I'll definitely be reading more of him.


Unity Masquerades as a Kaleidoscope   September 25, 2006
Kevin Salfen (Texas, USA)
79 out of 83 found this review helpful

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 Wataya is reaching out in every direction, to taint everything with his evil (defiling) intelligence.

Once the flimsy physical borders between these characters are down, the focus of the novel takes on a focused, white-hot intensity. It is almost as if the fire of it is so scorching that Murakami had to cloak it in an array of different facades. Also, by giving so many faces to the defiler and defiled, he insures that the reader will respond to one of them. One of the defilements will connect and lead to self-identification, and in this lies the great humanity of the novel, the thing that makes it so very intriguing for so many readers, the thing that makes it more than just a good yarn.

In the end, Toru is no closer to Kumiko. But he has fully become himself. He has merged with his unshakable purpose. Water flows unhindered in the long-dry well.


ORIGINAL AND BIZARRE   June 2, 2000
70 out of 75 found this review helpful

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 rather than actively pursuing them. Murakami's prose has a distinctive "Western" feel and, although his characters are Japanese people, living in Japan, they could be anyone, anywhere.

Those looking for the more traditional Japanese novel should look to other authors instead, most notably Yukio Mishima and Osamu Dazai.

Surreal and sprawling, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a detective story, a history lesson and a satire. It is a big book that unites Murakami's signature themes of alienation, dislocation and nameless fears in the voice of Toru, aka, "Everyman." It's an enormous accomplishment that, believe it or not, all starts with a pot of spaghetti and one lost cat.


Sitting in my chair   December 30, 2005
R. J. Fadeley
40 out of 59 found this review helpful

Sitting in my chair, I saw a sunny spot on the carpet. I resisted moving for several minutes, and the spot shifted its position slightly.

That's when the slender woman entered my line of vision. She was wearing a yellow plastic raincoat and pink Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers that sounded like Philly Joe Jones doing some inspired brushwork during "Night in Tunisia" (the Verve version, not the Bluenote).

She asked me if I liked her with our without breasts, and I said simply "Yes", remembering that I needed to sautee the chicken breasts for dinner, add a little soy sauce, and vaccuum the carpet.

When I looked up again the woman was gone. I looked back at the sunny spot, but it had started raining outside, and sounded like the rain drumming on the pith helmets of the Manchurian expedition stranded in Hangchow in the bleak autumn of 1939, when many of the soldiers were forced to unwrap their leggings and wring them out for drinking water and nourishment.

(Continue for 600 pages.)


Enjoyable Book -- But Abridged in English Translation   May 25, 2006
Roman Melnik (Los Angeles, CA USA)
28 out of 28 found this review helpful

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.