MY LEAST FAVORITE MURAKAMI BOOK

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

by Haruki Murakami

Vintage International | April 12, 1994

    Toru Okada's cat has disappeared. His wife is growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell. 

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Sorry for being MIA. I haven't done a lot of reading, and I don't feel motivated to do anything.

I've been reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle for almost a month. Again, there is an excess of "unnecessary" sexual content. I don't think it's because I'm prudish or immature; I genuinely think removing some sexual scenes/tones would not impact the story's efficacy. I've complained about it too often, so I think it's time I stopped reading Murakami's work altogether. It's a shame because I hear Sputnik Sweetheart and his The Rat series are quite good. Plus, there are elements of his writing that I genuinely enjoy.

I thought certain passages were long-winded and a struggle to get through. I started skimming through the recounting of the war, Nutmeg's father, etc. I did not like anything involving the war. I didn't dislike it because it was war; I think I disliked how it was presented. I did enjoy it after I realized the connection and how everything weaves together. 

Everyone praises Murakami's dreamlike, fluid, and meandering to nowhere writing, but I seem to be in the minority. I agree the mundane writing (how Murakami can capture all the details in the day) makes the story feel incredibly immersive and vivid. But some parts of the story felt so clunky and suffocating. Just get on with it and put me out of my misery! I was particularly offended by Ushikawa's LENGTHY diatribes. Please stop talking! The clunkiness probably came from the huge paragraphs. That's a stylistic and editorial choice... 

I was ultimately frustrated by the lack of plot while I was reading. Where is it going? I really need to rework my brain to focus more on the journey rather than the destination. Although I was lost while reading, things started to become clearer at the very end, and I started to get very interested, albeit incredibly lost and confused. I'm not entirely sure what I read, and I probably need to reread it, but that's probably not going to happen.

Upon finishing the novel, I looked up many discussions around the ending and what the book means, which I highly recommend. I particularly like The Book Escapade's post and this Reddit thread. I definitely see the dichotomy of good and evil, the ego and the alter-ego, etc. I feel foolish for not picking it up earlier/while I read it because it was glaringly obvious. 

There are a lot of interesting characters. It's like if an acid trip was made into a videogame. The main character is always meeting strange characters, exciting and colorful missions, and discovering something fantastic. In between missions and meeting people, it becomes calm. There is this feeling of introspection, a moment to breathe in between intense workouts.

Overall: great writing, unnecessarily sexual, a rollercoaster ride, but brilliant. Let's chalk up my bad experience with translation.