Wind up Bird Critique Book Club review.

[SiLeakHunt]

I think when the options came up for voting for Februaries book club I read the reviews and stuck my black dot on HariKari Marijuana's novel "The Wind up Bird Chronicle" the reason being I'd read "Fear and Loathing.." a few times already and the other option with it's cowboy and wild west references had more than a hint of Brokeback Mountain about it, so I trundled my way down Kinokuniya and located a copy. It took two security gaurds to lift it off the shelf and trolley it over to check out and I had to borrow my mates pick up to drive it home strapped in like a big wardrobe with the last couple of feet dangling over the edge of the tailgate and a couple of Isaan builders sat on the lee end to stop the weight tippling it into the middle of Rachadaphisek when we went over a bump.

I constructed a rig in my front room made of high grade building steel to hold it in the upright position and then did a duration assessment using Microsoft Project and realised it was looking like 74000 man hours from start to finish, so hired 12 students to work on different chapters consecutively on a shift basis in order that i got a feel for it before my tax return was due in September.

Here are their results (I've written it in the first person so it looks like I've actually read it myself).

When I started reading it I found it had what I could describe as a very pleasant atmosphere, sort of like a Japanese tea ceremony or a Bhuddist temple ceremony. It was an interesting insight into contemporary Japanese life and I felt that not only at the start but throughout the book the characters were pleasantly and convincingly portrayed. You have an instant image of what these people are like.

I enjoyed reading the first half and was curious to the outcome as the metaphors and storyline started to unfold.

Murakami manages to go down one storyline until your almost bored enough to put the book down and seems to be able to sense that in the reader and change it just in time to stop you nipping out for a short time by introducing a new thread.

I like the contrasts on one hand we hear about the lead character who has a pretty staid life sitting at home cooking and cleaning for his wife then pining for her when she leaves, then in the next chapter we meet Boris the Man Skinner.

I think once you start to see the sort of surrealist symbolism or parrallels that get drawn they tend to be a little bit thin bearing in mind that as readers most of us are adults, the dried up well, hitting rock bottom before you can get back up, the vet with the mark on his face who saves the city by killing the dangerous animals when the lead character gets a mark on his face, the Cano sister who has been defiled by Kumiko's brother, the well refilling etc etc.

I think a 21 year old arts student with little life experience might read and think "what a fantastic insight into life and fate" but as an adult I'm left thinking, "yeah quite good but so what".

It does have a certain "air" to it that I did like, it has a certain languid pace, he's not gone for cheap thrills and Dick Bartonesque cliff hangers at the end of each chapter a la Dan Brown Da Vinci code so it has a pseudy sort of feel to it however it's a bit long. Well it's very long, it took me fucking ages to read it and towards the end it felt more like a chore than a pleasure, a bit like waiting for your pension or running the marathon "I'm going to cross that finishing line if it kills me"

I'd compare reading it to going to the Opera, I'm not that churlish that I'd sit there farting saying "When are the strippers on?" and then storm off when I found out that there weren't any but to be honest I'd enjoy it for what it is and perhaps go once every two or three years.

Coincidentally I was reading a review of one of Anthony Burgess's books recently where the reviewer says that Burgess uses the two elements guaranteed to cause a stir and get the thumbs up, incest and doppelgangers which are elements Hashish Murrayminti has used throughout this effort.

Personally I'm a bit of a diletante when it comes to history and find history books a chore, so the insights in this book I liked. To give it a mark out of ten I'm really struggling, did I enjoy reading it? Yes although it took too long. Will I read another of his books ? Yes, but not for a couple of years.

I suppose it's like going to a lecture by an eminent professor at the Goethe Institute on "Germanic Influences on the linguistics and architecture of early 20th Century South East Asia", fascinating but you still go down Toy Bar for a wank after.

 

Cheers

[Nervous_Dog]

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Interesting point, Ihave to agree, at first it's all very pretty, interesting, groovy, but after a while I begin to think, yeah, I know that.

 

makes it hard to read at times, I used to love the artsy books, but as I get older I find they grate on me,

[chuckwoww]

I'm inclined to agree with most of what SLH says about Wind Up Bird. I enjoyed the way it jumped between reality and the bizarre but in the end I found it too unresolved. I like that kind of surreal writing and Murakami did manage to create a strange mood. It went on a bit too long though and I prefer Pynchon.

[SiLeakHunt]

I prefer The Beano.

[MooNoi]

For me, it's still the best book I've ever read.

 

Interesting point SLH made about "maybe if he was younger it would have had a different meaning", and maybe because I am a bit younger than you guys, (and first read it 3 years or so ago), it had a different meaning for me.

 

I just love the writing style Murakami has.

He can make an ordinary scene, such as an ordinary Japanese guy cooking spaghetti and making a salad, into an art-form.

 

The book has such a surreal aspect to it, and I think that if it was set in an other country other than Japan it just wouldn't have worked. (Japan being the crazy, quite-often surreal place that it is).

 

The main character does annoy me at times by being so non-commital about life and things that are important to him.

 

My favourite character is the 16 year old, May. She's a really refreshing character and injects life into the book and storyline in a big way.

 

It would have been easy for Murakami to go for some Lolita-like cheap thrill and have the main character sleep with her or she seduce him, be he left that well alone.

 

The war stories from Lieutenant Honda were bone-chilling for me. If that sort of stuff really went on, then I'm glad I wasn't there.

 

And the chapter where Toru chatted with his ex-wife by computer had a huge amount of emotion and was beautifully written.

 

I'm not sure how Murakami comes up with his ideas. I read in an interview that he doesn't use a plan or notes - he just writes. Imagine coming up with a character who's job is to sit outside a railway station, watch for balding men and then classify them A,B,C or D according to their baldness level... totally weird! But that's why I love it. It's so different from anyone else.

 

Murakami is still my favourite author. I haven't read a bad book of his yet. And I find his books quite easy to re-read again - each time I find something new in them.

[SiLeakHunt]

To be fair one of the problems with book clubs is that you "critique" a work ie you become critical of it and when you start thinking in a negative way about piece of work its amazing the bones you can find to pick at if you want.

I've taken stuff to writers groups and seen people be savaged for the slightest thing.

I think if I had written a work of the quality of Wind up Bird Chronicle I would be more than happy with what I had produced and commend him for that and will also admit that I'm looking at it through western eyes which tend to be reared on hard facts rather than surrealist and imaginary figures. I can see his work being a parody of some ancient Japanese myth written at the time of Wing Tzu.

Much as it's a great piece of work it ain't really my cup of tea although ones horizons can never be too broad.

I've got a mate who's a board member and accomplished match angler. It takes a lot of time, effort and skill to reach his standard and I might go along with him one day but for the time being I'm concentrating my efforts in my chosen fields.

 

Cheers