The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

If you have ever read much of this blog, you will have to know that Murakami is my new favourite love. But this one took me a long while to read, not because it isn’t good but because it is long and meanders.

“The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” sells itself as a story about stories – and it is true. Our main character, Toru Okada (called “Mr Wind-Up Bird by one of the other characters) meets a lot of interesting characters in this book, and the stories they tell him become interwoven with his own story. It starts when Toru’s cat disappears. Then his wife leaves him, for reasons that appear to be both supernatural and inexplicable. And somehow caught up with his sinister brother-in-law, Noboru Wataya.

How this comes to resolve itself (as much as Murakami resolves anything) are through Toru’s interaction with these other characters. His young neighbour May Kasahara who traps him down a well and gives him the eponymous name. The psychic detective and her sister – Malta and Creta Kano who take an interest in Toru’s story. Lieutenant Mamiya, who was also once trapped down a well (see how the stories become intertwined?). Nutmeg and Cinnamon Akasaka, designers whose “fittings” are a little more than fashion.

There is so much to this text, it is hard to summarise and explain. It is worth reading – all Murakami is – although I still prefer “Kafka on the Shore”.