Book Review: Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Reader's Guide by Matthew Strecher, published by Continuum, 2002. Paperback, 96 pages. (Amazon)



Part of the Continuum Contemporaries series that gives perspectives on contemporary fiction, Matthew Strecher tackles The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by one of Japan's most popular authors Haruki Murakami. Originally released as three separate volumes in Japan (the third coming after public outrage over the author ending the series after two books), english translations gather the three volumes into one, though no definitive text exists for one of the author's most ambitious and complex works. The novel centers on character's Toru attempt to recover his wife from, as Strecher describes, "a peculiar kind of entrapment." While this may start to sound somewhat conventional (though vague), Murakami strays from conventional narrative, using extended flashbacks, various points of view, and what can be described as a Japanese spirituality to entrance the reader in something she may not have a clear grasp upon. This confusion - or better open-endedness - can be attributed to Murakami's stream-of-conscious writing style where events unfold in the writer's mind shortly before the words hit the page, as opposed to working from an outline. Strecher's long essay gives insight that helps the reader navigate the text, though just like the original much is left to the reader's interpretation and imagination.