The Wind - Up Bird Chronicles - Murakami Haruki

"In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his
wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force."

This is a thoroughly confusing book and very difficult to review as I feel a person's experience of this book will be highly subjective. It certainly is a book to be experienced and left a deep impression on me. The book is a lonely world full of half finished stories, abrupt departures, missed connections and deep silences. A highly atmospheric novel, which I feel is more the point of the book then the confusing and meandering plot. To immerse you in this world of confusion, existential dread and urban ennui. 

While Wind-Up Bird didn't employ traditional clichés, there is the constant introduction of psychic characters who simply "know" things because they were "supposed to know" became slightly trite. Also, while half the characters were functionally omniscient, the other half did things without knowing why, claiming they were compelled by some uncontrollable, unknowable urge or force that often leaves them empty or numb of all feeling (literally, this happens with half of the characters in the novel). This started to feel old and frustrating because of the lack of character motivation that leads to characterisation. 

Some people have also argued that this 600 page book is functionally meaningless. An author can get away with a lot if ultimately the theme or message of the novel is intact. Try as I might, I can't find a coherent message Murakami was trying to express through The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami did include a character that thoughtfully reflects on war crimes in World War II, but this subplot was unfocused, and by the end of the novel this story within the story fizzles and suddenly ends without reaching a climax. 

However despite my rather harsh criticism, I actually enjoyed this novel. It danced on the edge of being surreal however I personally never felt that anything that had happen was completely unbelievable just really freaking weird. I think this book is a wonderful representation of the mental space that many mentally ill people can find themselves in. A strange mix of pain, common sense, confusion and loneliness. 

I would suggest if you do decide to give this book, just give up trying to understand it from the beginning. Nothing makes sense, and I think that is actually the whole point. It reminds me slightly of the existential surrealism of Camus or Kafka. 

Age Rating 17+ Sex, murder, war, cheating, rape, concentration camps, rather explicit torture scene.