Cats, Wells and Prostitutes of the Mind; Murakami's Chronicles (Wind Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami)

Member Name: Puggers

Product:	Wind Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
Date:	16/04/09 (221 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A wide-ranging, often surreal narrative, wonderful characters.

Disadvantages: Long and at times a little overly wordy.

Haruki Murakami is possibly definable best in relation to himself; he is not considered a typically Japanese author, and his books have strongly westernised elements; however he is still unlike most western writers, and his blend of Japanese culture and history, outside influences and wildly surreal interludes verges on unique. As such, while Norwegian Wood is perhaps his best-known work, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles are probably the best showcase of his enigmatic talent.

The novel's protagonist, Toru Okada, leads a simple, stressless life. He appreciates routine, although he is not bound by it, and in the absence of employment, enjoys simple pleasures; cooking, visiting local shops and listening to music. Some of his time is also dedicated to searching for his cat, whose absence is felt rather more keenly by his wife, Kumiko, the breadwinner of the house. However, when Kumiko also disappears, the simple, ordered nature of his life begins to unwind, and in order to find his wife, Toru discovers he must step outside the passive rut he has carved for himself and go searching for some answers.

If this sounds like a missing-person thriller, I've given the wrong impression of the novel. Rather, this is a story of the way in which reality eludes those who choose to take up the offer society makes when it offers them a back-seat role in life, a passive existence empty of meaning or acknowledgement of the outside world. In choosing to actively pursue Kumiko's disappearance, Toru begins to see that his life is much more complicated and interlinked with others' than he had allowed himself to believe.

The bulk of the story takes place inside Toru's head as he tries to make sense of events, and the wandering, ponderous narrative is a reflection of this. Murakami brings across the way in which reality collides with his protagonist's sensibilities wonderfully, with broad, evocative strokes and smaller, incisive observations. The changes in Toru's life are manifested in mental and physical form; people come into his life he otherwise wouldn't have met, and these individuals, inevitably rather unusual characters themselves, lead him ever deeper into the rabbit-hole.

These characters all contribute to or complement Toru's existential angst in their own manner. May Kasahara is a worldly-wise teenage girl with a exceedingly dark sense of humour and a preoccupation with death whose conversations with Toru provide some of the most pleasantly diverting sections of the book, assisting him in opening his eyes. A young lady whom Toru meets sunbathing in her garden, her open-minded, expansive outlook sits in stark contrast to his introverted mindset, and sets him on his way on his path to enlightenment.

Along the way, Toru also runs into a pair of sisters who have a tendency to invade his dreams, Kumiko's sinister but media-adored politician brother and an elderly former Army major whose recollections of wartime Japan may have more in common with Toru's troubles than he initially presumes - each of whom offers their own, idiosyncratic perspective on affairs.

Murakami's narrative is a vast, sprawling affair - this is a hefty novel, originally published in three volumes in Japan. The storytelling in The Chronicles move around wildly, between Toru's ever-more surreal story, May's letters and the tale told by the former Major, whose wartime memories form a major part of the middle of the novel. If there's a criticism of the book, it's that occasionally Murakami overindulges a fraction, and opts against reining in his extraordinary vision a little. It's not that there's too much here, exactly - the story demands the depth it is given; the problem is that it tends to wander a little aimlessly now and then before it works out where it's going. More zealous editing would have yielded a more streamlined story, but perhaps the meandering nature is a part of the story whose absence would have been missed.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, in all its lengthy, surreal glory is the sum of its author's prodigious talents; at the same time both intimately personal and detached - a contemplation of what modern society allows people to become. It's not easy reading, but perseverance is rewarded by possibly Murakami's best novel - one in which he is able to explore the full range of his abilities and create one of the most ambitious of contemporary stories.

Summary: The tale of a missing cat, a missing woman and possibly a missing mind.