Book Review: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Salutations, all! I am very sorry for my lack of updates, but life decided to kick me in the ass. I’ve been busy with work, school, family, and when I can fit them in, my friends, and I’ve been avoiding the internet as much as possible. But here I am! And I feel it is time for another review.

In contrast to my last review, I’d like to discuss Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I started my Murakami odyssey with Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World last year, and I was a smitten kitten after that. I didn’t have access to any of his other books, but I decided that, this term, I’d do an independent study in modern Japanese literature, and the teacher I chose to help me with it happens to LOVE Murakami, so it all worked out for the best. The second book I read by him was A Wild Sheep Chase, and while I originally thought it was lacking something, after having read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and currently being enmeshed in Kafka on the Shore, I’m partially convinced that it’s simply a facet of his style to leave loose ends and to at times be vague and not necessarily satisfy the questions he himself has created within his own stories. There’s nothing wrong with that; I think that I was just more into the story of Wind-Up than I was Sheep.

Anyway, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was a remarkable tale of…wow. I’m not even sure how to describe it. It begins as a story of a missing cat, migrates to a missing wife, delves into the mysteries of the mind, makes a few brief detours into grisly war tales, returns to Japanese suburbia, and then, much like Hard-Boiled, dances in and out of what is “real” and what is “of the mind.” In my pursuits online, I’ve found many people using words like “MurakamiLand” and “MurakamiWorld” in their descriptions of his books, and those are charmingly accurate. Murakami doesn’t just write novels; he has created an entire universe in which characters come and go, have sex and murder, wax philosophical and…talk to cats. He is a compelling and unique author in both his style and voice.

But focusing on Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (that’s what this is supposed to be about, right?), I felt lovingly drawn to all of the characters in the book, especially the main character, Toru Okada, whose cat has mysteriously gone missing, and whose wife, Kumiko, goes missing soon after. Wait, scratch that – I was never lovingly drawn to Noboru Wataya, Kumiko’s brother. He’s a nasty piece of business. But I did love May Kasahara, and the strange mother and son known only as Nutmeg and Cinnamon. The colorful array of characters Murakami has created populate another part of his universe and dance in the hauntingly surrealistic ballet that is the chronicle of the wind-up bird.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to get into Murakami or Japanese literature in general. It can be a difficult read – surrealism and hard-boiled detective stories are not everyone’s cup of tea – but it’s worth it.

Book Review: A Wild Sheep Chase

I don't get it. Am I supposed to?

Book Review: A Personal Matter

Kenzaburo Oe’s novel A Personal Matter is one that is both private and traumatic. It details the life of Bird, a 27-year-old college dropout whose wife has just given birth to a deformed son. The child has a brain hernia, which means that even if he does live, he will most likely be a vegetable all his life. It would appear to Bird that the answer is obvious – let the child die, as opposed to dealing with the shame of having given birth to a monster. This sentiment is reflected in the view of his in-laws as well as the doctors at the hospital at which the baby is born. But then a divide occurs at the second, specialist hospital – those doctors want to keep the baby alive, and want to go so far as to perform an operation. Bird struggles with himself, trying to decide what to do – does he let the baby die? Or allow it to live, knowing it may never lead a normal life?

To me, this novel depicts the schizophrenia of a post-war Japan, with Western culture and traditions trying to bully their way in. Bird’s attitude is that there is no point in the child living if something is wrong with it. His shame is compounded by the way his mother-in-law treats him, and affirmed by the doctors in the first hospital. One of the doctors actually encourages him to take control and not allow the doctors in the second hospital to operate, saying that it is his choice. But in the second hospital, there is a more Western view – they feel that the life of the child must be prolonged no matter what. This is the attitude that is given, much to Bird’s chagrin.

Unable to face this problem alone, Bird seeks out an old girlfriend and holes up with her, giving in to alcohol and continuing to fight with himself to come to a decision. Would he rather let his misshapen son die rather than prolong the life of something that would cause him some much personal shame if others discovered it?

Distracted and tempted by the idea of letting the child die and running off to Africa, his life-long dream (well, the Africa part; I doubt it was his life-long dream to let his deformed child die), Bird stares into the face of his own mortality and the path he has chosen in life. Does he do what is responsible; does he save the life of the child and dedicate his life to him? Or does he run away from this problem, risking the chance that he may never stop running once he starts?

I don’t want to spoil the ending, so I’ll stop there. Bird is one of the most compelling, conflicted characters I have ever grown attached to. I was surprised and pleased with the ending of the book. I highly recommend it, especially for anyone interested in Japanese culture and/or modern Japanese literature.