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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle [Paperback]

Haruki Murakami (Author), Jay Rubin (Translator)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (138 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Publication Date: 22 April 1999

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared.

His wife is growing more distant every day.

Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving.

As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.

(20021018)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 624 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New Ed edition (22 April 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099448793
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099448792
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 3.8 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (138 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Authors

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Haruki Murakami
Jay Rubin

Product Description

Amazon 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 an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down" (Daily Telegraph )

"Visionary...a bold and generous book" (New York Times )

"Murakami weaves textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty" (Independent on Sunday )

"Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original" (The Times )

"Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to suggest Murakami is in fact an original" (New York Times )
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
132 of 142 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars No man is an island 25 Sep 2000
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book haunted me from page 1, and is still haunting me now that I've read it. I started reading this book when I was jet-lagged after returning from a trip in Japan; and reading it did not help at all. I was completely gripped. I ended up reading chunks of it in the middle of the night, and living in a state of detached sleepwalking during the day. Thank God I've finished it and managed to have some real sleep.

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is about an "I" who is quite similar to the other "I"'s of Murakami's novels: the narrator, Okada, describes himself as completely normal, feels that he is somewhat a failure in life, feels detached and alienated, is well cultured especially in literature and music, knows the names of the Karamazov brothers and uses swimming and ironing as an anti-stress therapy. Not feeling very happy with his life, he quits his job for a break and to think about his next move. At around the same time his cat disappears, he meets a bored neighbour in her mid-teens, and his wife starts arriving later and later everyday from work. Okada's life becomes mundane: looking for his cat, listening to music, reading history books, shopping, cooking and eating at odd hours, chatting with his neighbour, waiting for his wife, a phonecall, or a letter, etc. Strange characters start to make their appearance in his life, telling him their life stories and slowly dragging him into a world of mysticism and occult. Mysterious events begin to take more time from his everyday mundane life giving this novel a very dark and surreal atmosphere.

This novel is very well written (thanks to both the author and the translator). It is clever, funny and also melancholic. It is full of witty remarks. It is quite a big book, made up of 70-80 `bite size' chapters that are very easy to read, and also addictive -- "I just want to read one more little chapter, just one and then I'll stop reading and go to bed, I know I can stop whenever I want to, I just need to know what happens next otherwise I would never be able to sleep, it's only 5 o'clock in the morning, that gives me 3 full hours of sleep before waking up to go to work..."

Well, it seems that I can go on talking about this book for ever. This is a story of alienation and detachment, of the feeling that others have control over your life, that your options are very limited and that happiness is unattainable. Not all puzzles can be solved, and not everyone can be understood. Highly recommended.

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42 of 47 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and self-reflexive 11 Feb 2006
By Andrew Page
Format:Paperback
Having been aware of the hype surrounding Murakami I was cautious when I began reading this novel, considered by some to be his masterpiece. I was expecting a throw-away offering from Japanese pop culture, but was impressed by how intelligent the book is.

True, if you are seeking a coherent story with a well-rounded plot you will probably be disappointed. The narrative revolves around the main character and his search for his lost cat. By way of a number of loosely-connected episodes, involving some intriguing and eccentric characters, and unexplained supernatural occurrences, this search develops into an investigation into the very nature of his own being.

There are, however, strong themes that are ever present in the fates and thoughts of the characters. At one point Murakami hints that there may, in the end, be no explanation for the supernatural events of the story. But that is entirely in keeping with the reflective passages on secrets and trust, reality and illusion, unity, doubleness and disintegration. I especially liked the chapters featuring the WWII veteran Lieutenant Mamiya - this character and his war stories are just brilliant.

This is a highly introspective and personal story that is not afraid to discuss matters that might not be suitable subjects at the dinner table. Murakami is also highly aware of his presence and role as author, and this is possibly where the main interest of the novel lies. The central questions of the novel seem to be, how far can language convey the ineffable? And what exactly constitutes reality and consciousness?

Despite being a deceptively easy read and capable of evoking highly lucid images, this novel is perhaps better suited to the reader with a slightly more serious attitude to literature, who has the time to interpret the story from the scattered hints and moments of realisation.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Moments Of Brilliance But An Unsatisfying Whole 14 Jun 2011
By L. C. Warne
Format:Paperback
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is both excellent and frustrating in equal measure. When Toru Okada's cat goes missing it sets off a chain of events that sees his wife go missing and starts Toru off on a metaphorical journey in search of her. For much of it's length this is a brilliant book, Toru meets some strange characters and hears some strange stories, the best by far being the wartime recollections of a soldier serving in the Japanese army in Manchuria. Where the book fails is that the many plot points and characters are never really unified in the way that would make this read as a novel rather than a collection of loosely linked tales. A far worse failing is that the last twenty pages are frankly a disgrace, as if Murakami was suddenly told that he had to finish the book in x pages. (This is not a complaint about an "open" ending, the book has a very "closed" ending - far too closed for what has passed before).
All in all I would recommend this book with the warning that however entrancing the parts many readers will find the sum much less rewarding.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars Odd
This was weird and not always in an entertaining way. Too long, with pointless, inconclusive branches of stories. Perhaps it just translates badly?
Published 2 days ago by Mr Gordon Bowie
4.0 out of 5 stars not an easy book but....
definitely worth the effort!
Even when you don't quite follow it, you cannot let it go!
It is fascinating at times , infuriating too but it never leaves its reader... Read more
Published 4 days ago by salsaqueen
5.0 out of 5 stars A modern classic
I don't use these words lightly, but The Wind up Bird Chronicle is one of the best books I've ever read. Read more
Published 5 days ago by D. J. J. Lavin
5.0 out of 5 stars Eerie, gripping, elusive.
This book sits up there for me with some of the all time greats. The transformation of the main character from a grey, non-descript nobody to a figure who's life stretches out... Read more
Published 5 days ago by stonccircle
5.0 out of 5 stars amazing
strange, wierd, different and an entirely different genre of literature than what we're used to. Would recommend to anyone interested in widening their reading horizons...
Published 11 days ago by Madhumati Manda
1.0 out of 5 stars what the hell was that about??
This novel started off great - I like books that are different & it's been ages since I've found a good one so was very hopeful for the first while. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Peggy G
1.0 out of 5 stars The most confusing book I ever read
If anyone ever makes sense of this book please let me know. The only reason I hung in there was because it was a book club choice.
Published 17 days ago by Blondie
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful start....last 100 pages stink.
First two thirds of this book are page turning and really crazy. I really enjoyed it. The stories/characters are all diverse and very enjoyable(tons of fine detail) but you wait... Read more
Published 25 days ago by chas
5.0 out of 5 stars Mr Wind-up Bird
This is quite simply, my new favourite book. It is a quintessential study of the Water element, packaged in a page-turning journey you never want to end. Read more
Published 1 month ago by maja
4.0 out of 5 stars Kindle book
I wanted to read this having read Norwegian Wood and enjoying it. I found it very strange and in a way not satisfying, but will try again, as there are so mnay layers within the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sue Breedon
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