The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

This is my second Haruki Murakami novel. The first being norwegian wood, which I found a little bit dissapointing and strange. It probably needs another read through. I decided to give Haruki another chance and read his masterpiece The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. The book started off quite slowly. It has some really surreal and bazaar parts which kept me interested, but also some more dragging parts. The book was simpl introducing you to the characters and showing you Toru Watanabe's "normal life" so that the effect of his life going crazy is stronger. Which it does. I found the book started to really hook me in at the part where we hear Lutenant Mamiya's long story. From then on the book is hard to put down! The book is very surreal and interesting. Not all answers are answered, the world in this book is very confusing, just like the main characters life. It's really gripping and mind boggling. Great book but it's very demanding and requires patience. I found it started to get really interesting after around 200 pages, so stick with it! The beginning isnt bad by any means, it's just not very exciting, but that makes the later part stronger!

Full disclosure: this was my first experience of Murakami’s writing, and I had no idea what to expect. What I got was a 640-page long, phantasmagorical fever dream, in which the line between fantasy and reality was so blurred, I couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Right up until the end of the book, I hadn’t a scooby what was going on. Five days after finishing it, I still don’t, but I never once considered giving up. The story centers around Toru Okada, a young, unemployed man in his early thirties, living a very ordinary suburban life, when his wife leaves for work one morning and doesn’t come home. She’s apparently run off with another man. Meanwhile, their cat has also gone missing. Abandoned and alone, Toru quickly finds his thoughts spiraling, as he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided by a succession of weird and wonderful characters, all with a story to tell. What follows is a mind-bending concoction of magical realism, fantasy, historical reimagining, and existential angst. There are sexual encounters, long periods of reflection at the foot of a disused well, and forays into Japanese World War II history, as well as numerous stories within stories that repeatedly take the narrative off into dislocating tangents. It’s as weird as heck but somehow oddly compelling. It certainly helps that Murakami writes with superb flow and flair. Indeed, his prose is perhaps the only aspect of the book that feels tangible and real. What you won’t get, though, is a story, at least in the traditional sense. And this, perhaps, was the only real letdown for me. The carrot that kept me reading was the anticipation of some kind of resolution at the end. Be warned: there’s none. It would take someone with a far greater intellect than I to interpret Murakami’s intentions in writing this novel. For me, the most obvious themes were loneliness, isolation, and identity. I especially enjoyed the WWII passages, which seemed to speak to the issue of national identity as well. At the end of the day, though, while on balance I can honestly say that I enjoyed the novelty of this book and have nothing but admiration for Murakami’s skill as a writer, it did leave me feeling frustrated. My advice? Be prepared for something very different and approach it in short bursts of reading. And don’t expect a pretty, pink bow at the end.

If you have ever been (un)fortunate enough to find yourself at an art college's graduate show then you will perfectly understand my forthcoming analogy. When those who do not possess either spiritual or mental fibre try to make Art - especially visual arts and more specefically abstract art, they invariably fail miserably. What they present may 'appear' to have form, structure and substance, and indeed, it may do so in the physical sense; but in the intellectual, spiritual, philosophical, ontological sense it is really a shell, a superficial expresion - an allusion to a world they have seen in other's Art, in galleries and in books. It is an echo of Art, but not Art itself, it is fake, a copy. When writers too, try to engage with subject matter that is clearly beyond them, they invariably fail. It is a truism that that which we are able to render (both visually and linguistically) is a direct reflection of our inner-self. What Mura-kami has given us in this work is by no means a small thing for it is the real thing, the crown jewels and not costume jewellery. It is 1990s Coca-Cola with acid and bite and not your local supermarket cola. He has struck a firm sign-post on the literary path and has created something of true worth and value, a rock on the collective pile of literary consciousness. Like so many of his other great works (Dance, Norwegian, Hard-Boiled) he openly displays his creative and intellectual greatness, frugality and fragility, brutality and his capacity for creative story-telling that defines and re-defines boundaries. 'Wind-up' is a surreal and yet very realistic journey that shows maturity and growth. I can't think of may novels that are accomplished as this. One of Mura-kami's strengths in this particular work is the interplay of the narratives (a mode he used time-and-time-again) and also the time-frame of the piece. Mirroring real-life, he introduces characters and then lets them go. This alone is worthy of praise. Quite why film-makers and writers feel they have to 'keep' the same characters from beginning to end (unless they get killed off), is quite beyond my comprehension. It seems such an artificial construct and altogether too manufactured and contrived to give any air of authenticity to the narrative. This work will not entertain nor interest all (which is no bad thing), but if you liked Mura-kami's 'Hard-boiled' or you are a fan of Salman Rushdie, then I wholeheartedly recommend this.

Got exactly what I ordered

Fast delivery and very nice cover Like it !

After leading a just too normal life, still --stagnant, one would say-- the main character of this story leads to the unknown -- he is looking desperately for his wife-- down into the corridors of the unconscious --his unconscious, anybody's unconscious.... A light in the dark, this work is a masterpiece that surpasses magical realism: it's got something else. What is that something else that Murakami presents in each book? A profound understanding of the psyche. A great reading experience.

Murakami jak zwykle świetny, to się rozumie samo przez się. Jednak druk tej książki jest o wiele mniejszy, niż np. 1Q84 tego samego wydawcy. Na początku małe literki bardzo mi przeszkadzały, miałam wrażenie, że umniejszają wartość tej świetnej książki. Potem się nawet przyzwyczaiłam, ale i tak uważam, ze tak nie powinno się publikować książek. Chyba, że na okładce da się ostrzeżenie, że literki miniaturowe. Nie rozumiem, dlaczego tak wydano tę powieść, nie ma ona nawet połowy liczby stron, co trzy tomy 1Q84, wydane w jednym tomie i normalnej wielkości czcionką.

Wasn’t sure what to expect and it took me a while to get through but it made me think and had some really lovely characters, a lot of magic woven in that makes you try to find magic in reality