The long Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Murakami
If you know me, you know how much I love Haruki Murakami’s work. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle did not disappoint. Like most of Murakami’s work, the story revolves around a simple character. Toru Okada, to whom the tale about takes us through his journey, and Murakami does a fantastic job at taking us through it through his excellent storytelling. Murakami uses the nonsense in the world, including individuals, governments, or even the nonsense nations may create, to create a story that confuses the reader in the best way possible. Murakami explores themes of isolation, loss and being lost of an individual and Japans history, the world left of World War II. This almost-boring character who seems to have no purpose except finding his cat and later on his wife is turned into a detective raising questions for the readers but which he is not as interested himself.
Toru Okada is a lost, passive main character. He doesn’t have massive motives in the story except maybe his wife. Toru’s lack of interest in the world might get repetitive at points as he spends most of the time raising more questions instead of answering the others. Murakami has created a mystery story where the detective is not interested in answering the reader's questions. This leaves us with unanswered questions at the end of the story that some readers might find annoying.
Murakami does carry the story to the point of repetitiveness. When Noboru spends time at the bottom of the well, I felt like those chapters were just used to further this story. Furthermore, when talking about the war, it might have felt too long even though it was exciting and helpful to the report; two or even three entire chapters of Lieutenant Mamiya’s story might be too much.
However, I do have to say that having some Japanese history was one of my favourite parts as when connected with the actual story it brought further my interest. This might be a consequence of the previous knowledge I had of Japan’s history and hence I found it easy to understand.
As mention before this story explores difficult themes of loss and identity. Toru doesn’t seem to need or want an identity, he does not look for answers and meaning of the bizarre occurrences that surround him. He rather conforms with everything. The rest of the characters are different however, they all look for their own identity and meaning of what to do and where to go. A great example of this is May Kasahara, the teenager who feels responsible for her boyfriend’s death. Even though she has lost her place in the world she still tries to look for a new place to go and be herself, a new identity she can actually understand. She goes to one of the most bizarre places, a wig factory, she is herself in isolation as she starts to answer her own identity questions.
Toru does not have a personal identity. Murakami explores his lack of identity by not answering the weirdest and bizarre questions being risen. He also explores as mentioned before Japan’s history and even comments on the wrongdoings of his own country questioning the reasons for these terrible happenings. The nonsense that surrounds us humans made by us individually, the governments we have and even our countries are used in the story to create this mesmerising mystery novel. But, Murakami creates even more nonsense with my favourite type of magical realism where he creates substories that make no sense but are never questioned.
What drives me more to Murakami’s worlds is his magical realism as he is one of the best writers to use dark themes that can be relatable to many people. But makes them more non-humanised by using magic and bizarre happenings and his superb writing to make them more relatable and hence more entertaining. He builds narrative tension for the reader to continue to read and thus, under the surface, to explore those dark themes which might be hard to talk about usually.
In summary, this might not have been my favourite Murakami book but, looking back on what I have learned and explored in this story, I am very grateful to have read it and I would recommend this book to anyone who loves Murakami or someone who enjoys Japan’s history in World War II.