The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel (Vintage International)

Intertwined narratives weave together history, personal relationships, and existential questions of memory and identity into a gripping narrative with masterful variation in rhythm, time, tone, and voices. I loved how vivid this book is— grounded in research and rich detail capturing the politics and cultural life of Japan in the 1980s as well as the controversial historical questions about the nation’s role in the mainland during the 1930s-1940s. I was most captivated by the parts about the secret fortress in Hailar, the Battle of Nomonhan, and the interactions between the Russian, Japanese, and Chinese. I am not bothered by the way the end resists easy answers and resolutions - in fact I think that’s part of the power of the book. At times, the female characters come across as a bit stereotyped as they’re described by the narrator, who comes across as chauvinistic, especially early in the book. Some of them may be endowed with supernatural powers yet overall they seem to have less subjectivity and agency than the male characters. But after all this is Japan in the 1980s when there was a low glass ceiling and women were routinely sidelined in the workforce. Perhaps a more generous reading is possible as the book continues— that chauvinism is part of the setup, as the book is very much a self-portrait of the narrator and the characters emanate from his POV — which gradually breaks down as he undergoes an identity crisis. I switched between the kindle and audiobook version and enjoyed both. Oddly the Kindle is the American version, while the Audible version is the British version - it’s not a big deal, though it’s odd at times to hear an American narrator using “torch” instead of “flashlight” etc. Some Audible reviewers complain about the women’s voices such as May Kasahara’s - but if you continue reading, the voices do fit the backgrounds of the characters as Murakami describes them, and their diction as Murakami writes it. May, for example, is a teenager and her voice on the page is generally lighthearted and breathless, and the narrator communicates that. Overall I think the audiobook narrator effectively differentiates between the many characters’ voices, which could otherwise be difficult to follow in such a long novel. It kept me listening and reading to the end.

I remember reading somewhere that Haruki Murakami’s books are among the most-stolen from bookstores. I’m not sure why that is, but there’s no denying that the Japanese author has very devoted fans. Reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was my first experience with him, and left me both sort of getting it and sort of not. It’s a hard story to describe: there’s a guy, Toru Okada, who lives outside of Tokyo with his wife, Kumiko, and their cat (which they’ve named Noboru Wataya, after her disliked brother) has gone missing. Toru has recently left his longtime job in a lawyer’s office, but is unemployed while he tries to figure out what’s next. Kumiko wants him to find the cat, and his searches for it lead him to strike up an acquaintance with a strange teenage girl, May, who lives down the block. That’s when the phone calls start. First, there’s a woman who says she knows who he is and starts talking dirty to him. But then there’s a psychic, a woman named Malta Kano, who explains that Kumiko has reached out to her to help with locating the cat. Kumiko and her family believe in things like psychics, having previously arranged for Kumiko and Toru to spend time with an old man called Mr. Honda, allegedly for spiritual consultations…but all that actually happens is that he repeatedly tells them about his experiences as a soldier in Manchuria during World War II. Toru meets with Malta Kano, and her sister, Cresta, but before long Kumiko herself disappears. She sends Toru a letter explaining that she’s left him for a coworker with whom she’s been having an affair, but he doesn’t believe this and decides to try to find her, which brings him into contact with even more strange people, including a mother and son who he calls Nutmeg and Cinnamon. And appearing throughout is the sound of a bird, that sounds like something mechanical being wound. This is a weird book, and I’m not sure I entirely understand it. It’s one of those that you finish and almost want to flip right back to the beginning and start again, to see if it makes any more sense the second time through. I think there will be a second time through, though certainly not now. And there will definitely be more Murakami. If I had to chose a single word to describe it, it would be “dream-like”. The way Murakami uses language and builds the world of the book create a feeling of constant loose connection, almost a structured free association, in which the concept that would tie everything together is just tantalizingly out of reach. It works well, and I found myself turning the pages and getting drawn further and further into it, though I suspected (correctly) that not everything was going to be tied up in a neat bow by the end. Honestly, though, once I finished it, though I felt like I liked it, I have had a hard time articulating exactly why. It was obtuse, the female characters were largely underdeveloped (though I did love May), and it felt like some storylines were just dropped like hot potatoes. But despite its flaws, it’s strangely compelling. There’s something magical and mysterious about the world as Murakami creates it, and it did get me thinking about some of the deeper themes that were explored, like our obligations to each other as people and the nature of power in relationships. It’s intellectually engaging despite the kind of haziness about it. If you’re ready for something non-traditional, I would recommend this book.

The fiction, the fame and the personality of Haruki Murakami constitute an unprecedented triumph of contemporary literature for all of us to cherish and honor around the world. Devoted to a narrative poetics of a dream of another logic of existence, Murakami embodies a splendor of re-imagining audacity that is distinctly of the highest achievement of the artistic sensibility of our times. Murakami's body of texts is an epic dream of defamiliarizing storytelling of displacement of consciousness beyond waking life and known finalities. An assault of art and soul in a colossal ambition of meaning, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a towering performance of narrative consolation that can only be read in a trance as a text of bliss. Every chapter of the 3 Books and 68 Chapters of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a shuffling shade of a visionary dream in a dazzling palette of gnosis of a storyteller as seer. The story of a failed marriage is spun in breathtaking narrative invention as a surreal extravaganza of human fate in a gorgeous pastiche of voices, styles and genres panning human meaning from the gross to the sublime. Written by the only writer in the history of literature who is also a marathon runner, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is nothing short of a narrative marathon of total genius that cuts the ribbon of enlightenment. The cat of Toru Okada's wife Kumiko disappears in the opening pages of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and a search for the cat ensues that turns into a phantasmagoria of unsettlement of consciousness in eerie occurrences of borderless mutation of dream and reality of 607 marvelous pages. An ordinary cat disappears and along with it ordinariness itself. From the mesmerizing story that Murakami tells us we may infer that in searching for what we lose we may recover more than we lost because in our search we had the courage like Toru to lose who we ordinarily are and find who we are at "the core." In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the world is a "defiled" place. "Defilement" is a foundational error of the human self being split into two by a diabolic "power." Every major character in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Toru, Kumiko, Creta, Lieutenant Mamiya and Cinnamon) is differently split into two and differently searching for a lost wholeness. Noboru Wataya, the brother of Kumiko, personifies the sinister metastasis of "defilement" that spreads and invades as a glamorous "power" of seducing and splitting evil A perplexed loser, Toru seems an Everyman whom Murakami selects to search for meaning deeply and literally in a "well" and surrounds with saviors of the soul like Mr. Honda, May Kashara, Lieutenant Mamiya and Nutmeg Akasaka and saves almost fully. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle reads like a medieval Morality play retold as a contemporary magical allegory of a postmodern psychomachia. As it draws to a close after an epic spell of storytelling, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle convinces us that it has told an ancient tale of the perils of the soul in an evil world and the ultimate victory of Good over Evil in a hypnotic surreal plot with real characters and magical action and mythical perfume that is the most imaginative narrative contemplation of human fate in our times. The story of Toru is a surreal edition with Murakami's idiosyncrasies of imagination, enchantment of craft and majesty of wisdom of the eternal story of Everyman. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a secret almanac of the soul--the lost soul, the searching soul and the saved soul--as a postmodern magical novel of mad loveliness and aching wonder. The act of reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle--moving from page to unfathomable page of an astonishing novel of voice after bewitching voice, mood after surprising mood, moment after mysterious moment and story after strange story of the encyclopedia of the human enigma--is its own incomparable meaning. However, if the reader cannot avoid asking at some point or the other of this fabulous script and the spell it casts what the writing and the reading of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle amount to, the answer can only be that it is about the ultimate human search for Murakami and his reader: saving the soul--that it is what Murakami has done in the way he knows best as an author to save his soul: by telling a story at the deepest recesses of an esoteric imagination and what we as readers ought to do in the way we know best as readers to save our soul: by losing ourselves in saving grace in the form of a novel of the highest generosity of narrative wisdom and compassion in contemporary literature. I doubt if anyone can read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle without choking in thanks for being saved in the magical opulence of imagination and wisdom and compassion of a transcendent novel of hell and heaven and the human soul by a storyteller as savior.

I began reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle driven by a desire to dive into more Japanese literature, especially after having previously enjoyed Haruki Murakami’s other works. What I encountered was both exactly what I expected—and completely unlike anything I had imagined. This novel is a story of surprises. It doesn’t just tell a tale; it disorients, shifts, and restructures your understanding of reality. Blending magical realism at its finest with undertones of existential horror and an undefinable sense of mysticism, it creates a narrative that’s as immersive as it is elusive. I especially loved the first-person perspective, which drew me directly into the protagonist’s strange, dreamlike journey. So many moments in the book felt like puzzles (like the guitar-case man) —not because they needed solving in a literal sense, but because they invited symbolic or metaphorical interpretation. That ambiguity is part of what makes the book so gripping. Another compelling layer of the novel is how it weaves in real historical events—particularly Japan's imperial involvement in Manchukuo and the Soviet presence in the region at the time. These elements added a striking, almost documentary depth to the otherwise surreal flow of the narrative. The cast of characters is also a highlight. The protagonist’s encounters—especially with the various enigmatic women around him—were constantly engaging. These women are not merely characters; they feel like symbolic forces: baffling, alluring. Each one brings a new emotional tone or existential question into the story. This isn’t just a story—it’s an experience. A layered, unsettling, and strangely beautiful one. Easily a 5 out of 5 stars.

" The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel " by Haruki Murakami Japan, 1984; "Everyman" Toru Okada has recently quit his job at the Law Firm and is at home making spaghetti when he receives an unusual call from an unknown woman. The woman claims to know Toru and presents him with evidence and wants to talk to him so that they can "Understand each other". Toru dismisses her quickly and goes back to cooking. It turns out that this is only one of many strange things to happen to Toru which include, his family cat running away, his wife mysteriously going missing, and introductions to a very unusual cast of psychics, politicians and an unusual 16 year old girl who lives down the alley from Toru amongst others. All of this seems to have happened while an unusual bird cries in the back ground. A bird Toru has never been able to see and has never heard anywhere else. Its strange cry sounds as if it were winding a spring. Toru and his wife have taken to calling it "The Wind-Up Bird" ...... This was an interesting yet sometimes meandering read. Japanese writers seem to tell stories in a vastly different way than westerners and this is one of the things that make Murakami's stories interesting. There seems to be more emphasis placed on the supernatural, philosophical view points, and metaphysics. These are all prominent issues in "Wind-Up". Also we are given a glimpse at Japanese culture and the Japanese psyche. This is the second book of Murakami's I have read with " Kafka on the Shore " being the first. The Good: Murakami's writing has a way of keeping you interested. Even sections that would typically come across as mundane or boring if written by someone else still seem to come across as interesting or unique. As seems to be the case with Murakami, we are introduced to very unique and interesting characters and somewhat fantastical situations which is part of the charm of Murakami's writing. The Bad: There are parts where "Wind-up" feels a little overwritten or a little meandering. I felt that a little too much time was being spent on some of the ancillary tales he used to explain some of the side characters and their involvement in "Wind-Up". Some of his ideas were a little too abstract at times as to how certain things worked and peoples actual capabilities. I can't be too specific on that without giving spoilers. Overall: "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" wasn't a bad read overall though if you haven't read Murakami before I wouldn't recommend you start with book. If you have read him before and enjoyed his work "Wind-Up" is worth checking out but it along with all of Murakami's work is not likely to be for everyone.

I read "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" for one of my college classes and it was definitely an interesting read, to say the least. The story was slightly confusing in certain parts but it tied to more mysterious power working behind the scenes. Magical realism is a genre I'm not too familiar with but the way Murakami portrays the protagonist's perspective of the main conflict persuaded me to look deeper, analyze the concepts, and discover hidden meaning. The connection between the protagonist and the well resonated with me. We all have our secret, safe place to think about life and how to overcome any challenges thrown our way. Another aspect of the novel I liked was the protagonist's encounters with various characters. These were intriguing and extremely immersive, especially the section regarding Lieutenant Mamiya's narrative of his wartime experiences. The recollection of Lt.Mamiya's memory of Boris the Manskinner was gut-wrenching and so powerful. It was a difficult story to read with the depictions but I enjoyed how different this novel was compared to other pieces of writing I've read before. I would say it's worth a read but not one of my favorites right off the bat. Maybe reading it again would ignite something else. It's one of those books where you can apply your own experiences to understand the flow of the protagonist's life.

This author never fails to surprise me , with each book the story is uniquely different. He gives such vivid descriptions that you can actually see and feel what he describes.

This deep, thorough novel is quintessentially Japanese in style and content; echoes of this story can be heard in countless works of literature and film that I have seen. I love this book, and because other reviewers have all said the basics better than I could ever hope to, I'll just make a few additional points that may not have been said. This novel was clearly an inspiration for many of Japan's most well-known independent film directors. Specific scenes in the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle vividly portraying horrific and supernatural events recall similar imagery I've seen in some of my favorite directors' films, such as those of the well-known Miike Takashi and Kitano Takeshi. The attitudes of the characters and their interactions with each other has the so-called "dreamlike" quality crafted so powerfully that as I read it, my own sense of time distorted to Murakami's liking. The exact same effect is prized by Japanese film directors, which is what makes Japanese film either entrancing or "boring" depending on the audience. A disclaimer: I in no way can claim that Murakami directly inspired the above directors. That he did, somehow, is merely my assumption. Yet, the similarities are unmistakable. I admit it is most likely due to simple commonalities throughout Japanese artistic culture. A note on the translation: it is good, very readable, but it is clear to me that the translator favors literal translation techniques. This leads to some redundancy in style that presents itself more clearly due to the novel's incredible length. This is not truly a problem, but readers used to British writing may find the style dry. For your information, I am a fluent speaker of Japanese, and read Japanese at a 5th grade level. The above is just one small example of how well Murakami captures the spirit of Japanese modern art in this novel. My own limited skill as a writer and reviewer compels me to simply implore anyone reading this review: if you have even a slightest interest in Japanese contemporary art and literature, you should read this book. If you've seen any Japanese films such as those by the directors I mentioned above, then you MUST read this book! The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle will sum up a rich modern tradition of Japanese storytelling for you; if you love it, it will open your tastes to the entire world of Japanese culture that enthralls countless people (myself included). If you dislike it, you can at least rest assured that you have tasted some of the very best of Japanese contemporary fiction before passing your judgment.