The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Ratings324
Average rating4.1
‰ЫПYou can‰ЫЄt keep it up forever, though. You‰ЫЄre going to burn out sooner or later. Everybody does. It‰ЫЄs the way people are made. In terms of evolutionary history, it was only yesterday that men learned to walk around on two legs and get in trouble thinking complicated thoughts. So don‰ЫЄt worry, you‰ЫЄll burn out.‰Ыќ
Tried listening to this. Four hours into it I spent a week subconsciously doing everything I could to avoid it. Part of it was the wandering going-nowhere-quick story and the other part was the narrator. I suspect I might have been more engaged with it in book form. So I walked away from it. Sigh.
I don't usually read much in the way of fiction, always preferring the fantastical to the mundane, but I have to give credit where credit is due, and Haruki Murakami definitely delivers in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Each character, including the cat, seem to be well defined and at the same time oddly aloof. Their interconnectedness brings the otherwise disparate story lines into one powerful, cohesive, and utterly riveting plot.
What a wild book. Seriously I found myself thinking this world makes no sense. It's just so mundane, or so you think, then you realize you can't stop reading it, that the world is mysterious and quirky in just the right way that you can't stop and you much know more and keep seeing what happens.
Murikami is weird in a way I like. Hope his other books are better though, because if there was a point to all of this, I missed it. I can't say I understood the book wholly, but reading it was a delight.
That was complex! Lots of intertwined stories, a very bold and confident book. Only four stars because at some point it was a little bit to much and I got lost...
It was fine I guess. The ending was unsatisfying, and the book is exceptionally long, which is not a great combination. The world building is interesting and there are a lot of intriguing questions, but ultimately, like Lost, the book doesn't deliver on them.
The wind-up bird chronicle is a fascinating book. An oneiric tale full of surreal elements mixed with real-world stories of a rather heavy nature. To me it somehow was like a mix of David Lynch movies with magical realism of Marquez all bathed in Teriyaki sauce. Besides the main story line we get involved in the story of Lieutenant Mamiya from the time of WWII. This was truly a gem for me, especially that I did not know anything about the events in and around Mongolian territory from that time. It surely is a grave and sad story, but also a great study on human nature.
As a whole I see the book more as a parable of human life. A single person lost between forces which move him around the world without any consent. The paradox of life in society, but being isolated from it in the same time. The, sometimes, disastrous influence of traditions and social norms on one's life and well being (not in material sense).
Personally reading this book was a great adventure for me. Not only because of the aforementioned elements, but also because how much it was put in Japanese culture. It was my first true experience with Japanese literature and now I want to discover more of it :)