The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami is an accomplished author (and marathon runner). To me, he's the kind of person whose had a fulfilling life. He inspires me.

After having read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, I couldn't help but feel that Mr. Murakami's ideas and plots has meshed together, creating a kind of abstract quilt. I do understand that all the characters are connected by their shared disatisfactory outlook and where they are in life, but I expected more of a "it all comes full circle" when the accounts of Hsin-Ching/Manchuria were unveiled. And then I asked myself what happened to the Kano sisters? Was it really just a dream or did Creta Kano bear Toru Okada's son and make Mr. Mamiya foster father, in turn helping him to recover from the curse he had been bearing all these years from Boris the Manskinner? Did she really stay in Japan? Beware of water. Was it a paradox? Is not water life but almost death for Toru? And May Kasahara, though cynical and beginning to sensitize because of Toru's "healing power", what is next for her? What was that hotel room - that alternate reality? And then Kumiko. The mysterious caller. Does Kumiko love her husband now? She does not explicitly say but in her final letter, or the final part of the 'Wind-Up Bird Chronicle', Kumiko expresses gratitude to Toru for guiding her out of the labyrinth. With the cause of the chaos - one man - out of the way, all other characters are returning to their peace. But Toru knows that he must wait in a place where he will be alone and unfamiliar with everyone else. Like a Kafka or Hemmingway character, he knows that it is meant to be.

Kumiko's last response didn't share reciprocation but just a kind of unconditional gratitude that didn't make her sappy. The things that left me feeling out of place with how I felt about Toru was the anime harem-like feel and the fact that he slept with Creta, maybe even making her pregant, as mentioned above. Still digesting. I suppose it is what it is. When Kafka wrote his stories, many people expected the traditional happy ending or summing up of things, perhaps even a moral to the story. Self-healing was the big theme here, aka moving on. I... like that. I'll have to keep thinking about Kumiko's last response, as if she were my own wife, and just see. In a sense, it does seem more realistic. It leaves the unknown future clouded, as always, the big theme that a lot of writers are afraid to end their works with.

Well, I suppose the next one I'll read will be Norwegian Wood. Murakami's writing is amazing. AND I probably will go to the local comic book store to pick up Chew. Perhaps Friday?