The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel
A "dreamlike and compelling" tour de force (Chicago Tribune)--an astonishingly imaginative detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets from Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria during World War II. Now with a new introduction by the author.
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat--and then for his wife as well--in a netherworld beneath the city's placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is one of Haruki Murakami's most acclaimed and beloved novels.
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat--and then for his wife as well--in a netherworld beneath the city's placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is one of Haruki Murakami's most acclaimed and beloved novels.
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Community Reviews
A missing spouse. A missing cat. A well. My memorable first encounter with the mind-bending, boundary-blurring work of Murakami. Enjoy!
This is my second Murakami book, which I read right after Kafka On The Shore. Kafka was my favorite recent book until I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami's writing has a way of making you feel like you are in a fever dream that you never want to wake up from. Every character in this book is well written with depth. In classic Murakami fashion there's a perfect balance of absurd playful interactions between characters. The story strikes a perfect balance of surrealism with magical elements but still finds a way to feel real because of the themes involved are real life problems we are all familiar with. This book will stick with me forever.
Flirting between the real world and the dream-like state of another parallel dimension existence, following the protagonist and his grasp of trying to understand his reality. The search for a missing cat has never been so filled with adventures and sexual desires. I love this author but the length of his novels conflicts me as the storyline could be created into a short story but his writing just puts you in a trance enjoying his writing style.
This is the 8th Murakami book I've read and definitely in the top three for me along with Norwegian Wood and After Dark. The short of it is that Toru Okada is having some angst after leaving his legal job (I relate to that!) when things get very magically weird and his wife leaves him in mysterious circumstances. Interwoven with that is a bunch of truly horrific World War II stories from the perspective of Japanese soldiers in Mongolia, China, and Russia.
Beyond that, it's really difficult to explain what I think the book's deeper meaning is about. It's pretty complex; to give you a rough idea, it's very long and I can't actually think of any scenes that could have been cut. I pretty much always think editors should have slashed down long books. Unlike many Murakami novels, it actually mostly made sense even though it was full of literal magic. I wasn't prepared for such an in-depth exploration of violence, and I think this fantasy book also deserves a horror classification.
Beyond that, it's really difficult to explain what I think the book's deeper meaning is about. It's pretty complex; to give you a rough idea, it's very long and I can't actually think of any scenes that could have been cut. I pretty much always think editors should have slashed down long books. Unlike many Murakami novels, it actually mostly made sense even though it was full of literal magic. I wasn't prepared for such an in-depth exploration of violence, and I think this fantasy book also deserves a horror classification.
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