The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami(Vintage)

This is the fourth Murakami book that I’ve reviewed for the Women24 Bookclub, but there’s a good reason for that.

And not just because he is my favourite author, but because I think his books are so engaging and intricate that they have a lasting quality, something that stays with you long after you have finished reading them.

In a weird way, I feel like they always have some relation to my own life, or maybe life in general, and even though I am always dumbfounded by the detail and how things don’t always make sense, in the end, it’s always worth the experience.
In the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, the plot returns to the Murakami staple urban location- Tokyo.

Similarly to his other novels, the plot centres around a particular, lonely character, Toru Okada, an unemployed stay-at-home husband whose life begins to unravel after hearing the cries of the “wind-up bird” and receiving a series of bizarre phone calls.

In true Murakami style, the story is a complex narrative that interweaves everything from Japanese military history to the daily musings of Okada’s lonely existence, the strange people he meets, and the search for his cat, and wife Kumiko.

After I put the book down, I tried to figure out how everything connected together, what the significance was of all the stories, all the historical analysis and otherworldly activity.

But after becoming even more confused, I realized it doesn’t matter. I don’t actually need to have all the answers, because I don’t think that is what reading Murakami is really about.

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