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Haruki Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

W

Wabbit

New Member
Was browsing Amazon. I found this, it sounds very interesting. I think this author was mentioned here recently???? Not sure :)

Anyway... sounds interesting!

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.
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, Amazon.com --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Book Description
'Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original' The Times

What do you think? Anybody know this author? Anybody read this or heard about this book???? :)

Regards
SillyWabbit
 
I'm about to start South of the Border, West of the Sun. I haven't read anything else of his yet, but this appealed. Feel the book cover, Wabbit. His name is embossed on the front. Feels nice. mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Third Man Girl
 
SillyWabbit said:
Anybody know this author? Anybody read this or heard about this book? :)
Click to expand...

I recently read Dance Dance Dance by Murakami, and despite not having the benefit of reading its predecessor, I still managed to get into the story - I suppose it's like reading James Bond where you don't have to have read Casino Royale to get into From Russia With Love.

Said book was certainly a melting pot of strange characters and certain mundanity. I sometimes found his constant repetition a little annoying when reinforcing ideas - that might have been the narrator though. Or the translator.

Overall, his style is good. Worth a punt! :)
 
Hmmmm, I am not sure if to take a chance on this :) Anybody read this particular book?

Mile-o, what is his style like? Comparable to anybody I might know? How strong is the magic realism element in this work?

Regards
SillyWabbit
 
SillyWabbit said:
Mile-o, what is his style like? Comparable to anybody I might know? How strong is the magic realism element in this work?
Click to expand...

His style is good. Dance Dance Dance was first person, which I like. As for how strong the magic realism is, well it's...normal!

He can dwell on the absolute mundane - such as someone's ears - waxing lyrical about it, and then move into a completely surreal situation without even making much note of the change. As if it happens every day.

The Modern Word is planning to do a site on Haruki Murakami (some day soon, preferably :mad: ) but, in the meantime, they have a page up saying that here there will be a site on him. It contains links to interviews, reviews, etc. of his stuff (click here).

He's worth a read. :)
 
SillyWabbit said:
K, thanks :D

*hands you a jaffa cake*
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Bits the rim, then nibbles the chocolate off the top, peels the jaffa out and chew the sponge. Devours the Jaffa in a corner after folding it over. :p
 
Mile-O-Phile said:
Bits the rim, then nibbles the chocolate off the top, peels the jaffa out and chew the sponge. Devours the Jaffa in a corner after folding it over. :p
Click to expand...

Why don't you just finish off with a cigarette, like the other guys? :cool:

Third Man Girl
 
I read Wind-Up Bird Chronicles a couple or three years ago. It really isn't that it is magic-realism, if I remember correctly, in the same way that 100 Years is. I seem to remember it being more in the vein of "Twin Peaks" or something. I mean, darker, more introspective, more sexual, in a way. But, good. I think it's one that would be hard to forget.
 
Just started this, and am very impressed so far. Am irritated by the chapter titles, as they don't make sense until after you've read the chapter so you have to go back and re-read them. Otherwise, very powerful stuff. Someone in another thread was commenting on 1st vs. 3rd person, this is a great example of a slightly flawed narrator in 1st person revealing more than perhaps he means to. Looking forward to more of it.
 
Wabbit,
Sure I can recommend it. It was a very good book. I just happened to read it at a time when I was very unhappy with my personal life (i.e. dumped again), so my reaction to it was a little skewed.
I think it is the kind of book that could be read two or three times without exhausting all the little nuances.
 
funes said:
Wabbit,
Sure I can recommend it. It was a very good book. I just happened to read it at a time when I was very unhappy with my personal life (i.e. dumped again), so my reaction to it was a little skewed.
I think it is the kind of book that could be read two or three times without exhausting all the little nuances.
Click to expand...

Hi :)

Could you explaine your comments a little for me? Why do you say your reaction was a little skewed?

Thanks!

Regards
SillyWabbit
 
i've read the wind up bird chronicles and quite enjoyed it, i agree with funes' comparison to twin peaks. Can't remember if another book comes before this one, it was my first murakami and i enjoyed it - so it's probably not critical if there is a sequence. incidently the american hardback version is beautiful.

ksky
 
Wabbit,
I will try to answer your question. ( I tried to once already and when I hit the submit reply button found that I had gotten logged out. God is that annoying!)
Anyway, I read the book a long time ago (5 years?). But, if I remember rightly, the plot has a lot to do with a guy who is isolated from a woman he loves (a class structure thing, I think) and his life sort of spirals out of control. Or maybe takes a definite slide to side, or something. It is very hard to explain. But, you see the connection to getting dumped, and therefor my "skewed" reaction.
One of Murakami's favorite themes, as far as i can tell, is that there are layers of reality, or alternate realities (though not in the traditional sci-fi sense).
So, I urge you to read the book if for no other reason than that I doubt that anyone can really explain what it is about thematically.
 
I should also say that I read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World many years ago. It also contains many of the same thematic elements, though they are used in more clearly definable ways (i.e. the "layers" of reality are more clearly delineated). I recommend it as well.
 
Finished this and really, really enjoyed it. The narrator's inner life is captured incredibly well.

Still wondering what happened to a couple of the characters. I have this need for closure.
 
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