I’ve been trapped in the abyss that is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami for months now! One of the weirdest books I’ve ever read has been oddly comforting and has provided companionship during the long winter/spring season of full-on remote teaching. Many a night when not another particle of sentience existed in my frazzled brain .... I looked forward to climbing into bed and falling asleep to the escapades of the downtrodden main character, Toru Okada.
So, this book has become a metaphor for my weird life, entering my 60s, pining away for a lost love from long ago, yet oddly hopeful about the next chapter of my life. I finished reading it today—July 8, 2021, a day before my youngest child turns 25. A quarter century of child-rearing and muddling through a life that wasn’t what I planned but richer and more interesting than I ever could have imagined!
Back to the Chronicle, some fucked up shit lurks in the mind of Haruki Murakami; oh but the way he strings words together! Or is it his translator that has the way with words? I was hooked when I read Men Without Woman, a book of short stories that introduced me to the quirky characters and unusual yet ordinary plot events from Murakami’s imagination.
I can’t begin to summarize the Chronicle better than this excerpt I lifted from the last page of the ebook that has inhabited my kindle for so many months, in 21-day intervals!*
“THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II. In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo.“
* First download was January 12, then February 4, March 2, March 26, April 18, May 12, and finally June 25. That must be some sort of Overdrive record!
