Review: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Oh goodness. Mr. Murakami. Well it took me about a year to read this book. Just your average 600 page book, except it's Murakami meaning it doesn't really pick up till page 400. The first 400 pages are all random stories that have nothing to do with the main story. 1Q84 was just like that- you don't really know what's happening till it's almost all over. So on the surface this is a book about a man whose cat and wife runs away. In order to get his wife back his cat has to return. But in the telling of that simple story there are some amazing characters with their own amazing stories that also have to be told. There's war, stories of zoo animals being murdered, stories of being trapped at the bottom of a well. I just love the storytelling. Does Murakami have a collection of short stories? I've read individual short stories published here and there, but man I love his storytelling. Like 1Q84 there were moments during this book where I couldn't wait for it to be over, I just wanted to figure it all out and see what happened! But then towards the end I could have listened to May Kasahara talk about the duck people forever, or Nutmeg talk about her color, or the Colonel and Boris the Manskinner's stories more. Just another wonderful Murakami book that I'll think about for a long long time, I'll recommend it to friends that'll never read it and every once in a while I'll get confused about what the real world is and what Murakami's world is.



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