The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Title: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Author: Haruki Murakami
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 1997
Rating: 8.5/10

Review: My only previous experience reading Murakami was 1Q84, which I thought was a profoundly strange book. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is no less strange, but quite different in style and content.

The main hero is Toru Okada, who is a 30-year old married man, who gets laid off from a law firm at which he works in some errand-boy/clerical position. His wife works in the publishing business and continues to do so while Toru stays at home and tries to figure out what it is that he really wants to do.

The couple owns a cat who goes missing. Toru's wife, Kumiko, hires a psychic to find where the cat disappeared to and sends Toru to the appointment with the psychic. The psychic is an entirely odd character named Malta Kano, who tells Toru that the cat has decided to leave for good, also tells Toru where to find the tie he's been looking for, and declares that Toru's brother-in-law, Noboru Wataya, has raped her sister. Things only get odder from there when Toru gets a house call from Malta's sister, who tells him half of her life story and then disappears. On top of it, Toru gets an inheritance from an old man he used to visit and strikes a friendship with a 15-year-old neighbour.

I will stop re-counting the plot at this point -- to say it's complex is an understatement. There's a whole lot of plot lines and characters who do odd things to various degree. And the strangest thing is that I really enjoyed that.

The book is divided into three parts. I believe they were originally published separately. The first two parts are especially good and kept my attention very well. The last part felt a bit less tightly plotted and more meandering and even stranger than the rest. The ending was not entirely satisfactory. I sort of understood why Kumiko did what she did, but did not understand why she had to publicize it as she did. I did not have the feeling of full resolution, but I guess most mysteries did get resolved at the end.

Overall, it was a really interesting read and one I would wholeheartedly recommend if you enjoy puzzling over people's psychology, enjoy war stories, or have ever felt lost.