Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I'm not quite sure where to begin, but after finishing a Murakami novel, that's not altogether too surprising. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is oft' touted as Murakami's best and most notable work, and that's what I was hoping for - to be completely blown away. And yet, despite the book being bizarre and ambitious in equal measure, I was left disappointed. The book starts out with Toru, the protagonist, looking for a cat adopted by him and his wife, that's gone missing. Toru has quit his job, has no real ambition, and is just drifting through life, trying to figure out what is it he wants to do, while his wife brings home the money.

When the initial search for the cat is fruitless, he ventures further out to the "alley", and ends up meeting a high-school dropout, May Kasahara. His relationship with May evolves, and is almost bordering on pedophiliac. Still no luck finding the cat, so, he ropes in Malta and Creta Kano - the two psychic sisters, both of whom have interesting life stories, and end up visiting Toru in his dreams, as well as in reality.

And then, as things go, his wife leaves home for work one day, but never returns. In due course, our protagonist discovers that she's left him, without  a word. As one does. And then, a sequence of extraordinary events, and interactions with fascinating characters sees his life spin (or should I say, tailspin?) out of control, where he's no longer the master of his own destiny; instead, he's struggling to figure out what on earth's going on.

There's the experiences as he sits in solitude at the bottom of the dry well, and then there's the mysterious phone calls; the dreams which aren't really dreams, and the reality that's a tad distorted. All of it is a bit confusing - I'm all for magical realism, but this is just a little too over the top; a little too cryptic.

The book does cover a lot - from World War II, and the story of the solider and the spy, which had me absolutely gripped, to World War II, and the story of the animals that were heartlessly massacred, which had me depressed and lamenting.

'The officer gave his order, and the bullets from the Model 38 rifles ripped through the smooth hide of a tiger, tearing at the animal's guts. The summer sky was blue, and from the surrounding trees the screams of cicadas rained down like a sudden shower.''

It has the obligatory contemporary political slant, which most books by Murakami (that I've read) touch upon, if not focus on. And, again, as expected, there's romance that fades away; and female characters all carrying way too much baggage. Add on strange names for some of the characters (Cinnamon and Nutmeg), and even stranger life stories, and it's all Murakami.

The thing is, I just really struggled to comprehend what was going on, and why. And then it all fizzled out, and became even more ambiguous and abstract - the second half of the book, that is. Normally, I love ambiguity and magical realism, but here, it just didn't "fit", I thought. Sometimes, it be that way. All the more disappointing, as I was glued to the first third/half of the book.

Have you read this much-acclaimed book? Were you as underwhelmed as I am, or is it just me?

Haruki Murakami - South of the Border, West of the Sun

This is the fifth book by Murakami that I have read, and excluding What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, I have to say it's the most subtle. The magical realism and bizarreness that I expect from Murakami's writing is missing, which is almost disappointing. However, this book is strangely reminiscent of Norwegian Wood, in that the title is inspired by a song (Nat King Cole's South of the Border), and that the middle-aged protagonist still thinks of his first love. Hajime, thirty-seven years old when this novel starts, is the narrator. An only child in the 1950s, when most families had at least two children, Hajime is often considered to be the stereotypical only child: spoilt and selfish. While for the most part, he does come across as a decent introspective narrator, some of his actions and thoughts lead us to believe he does actually fit the "only child" bill.

Hajime and Shimamoto, a twelve year old girl left lame by Polio, meet when the two are twelve years old, and instantly strike up a friendship. Shimamoto is an only child as well, and the two children feel perfectly at ease with one another, until the inevitable happens: Hajime moves to another town at the end of the school year, and the two lose touch.

Hajime has his first girlfriend, and the first girl he sleeps with is her cousin, hurting his girlfriend at the time beyond repair. He attempts justifying it, saying

From the first time I saw this girl, I knew I wanted to sleep with her. More accurately, I knew I had to sleep with her. And instinctively, I knew she felt the same way. When I was with, my body, as the phrase goes, shook all over. [...] The magnetism was that strong. I couldn't let this girl walk away. If I did, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

He still stumbles through life, till he reaches this point: happily married to a placid loving woman, Yukiko, with kids, running two successful jazz bars. He is content, for the most part, but something is missing. Cue, Shimamoto enters his bar one day, and the two childhood friends are reunited, much to their joy. The attraction is mutual, and he is ready to give up his content happy life to spend time with her. However, her life remains a dark mystery throughout the book - she doesn't talk about her past, or the troubles she's undergone. She comes and goes, sometimes disappears for months unending, with no explanations, but that's enough to make Hajime's life tumultuous as he obsesses over her, how he can't live without her and how he's ready to sacrifice everything for her.

The title itself is indicative of that, with the "West Of The Sun" referring to a madness that affects Siberian farmers which causes them to forget about the bare necessities of life, but just keep walking towards the land west of the sun, till they drop dead out of fatigue, hunger and thirst. It's this self-destructive streak that made him endearing, and almost stopped me from judging him for his actions, and his susceptibility to infidelity. Also, it did make me ask the question: is this selfishness and obstinacy a result of him being an only child - a point Murakami's emphasises abundantly in this book? He does ponder the repercussions of his actions, but at the end of the day, he's predominantly thinking of himself.

Infidelity is never forgivable as per my moral compass. And then, we see the lives of women destroyed - of happy women transforming into unemotional stones, of women full of life feeling compelled to kill themselves, of married women willing to accept infidelity - and that makes me wonder, why on earth is it that women are normally shown to be that weak and fragile, so much so that men can break them so easily?

The one thing that did really annoy me about this book was that as a reader, I have no idea as to what Shimamoto's story is! What is she hiding and why is she being so secretive? So coy? So precocious?

I enjoyed the flow of this book, specially in the second half, where Murakami describes the imagery and the emotions oh-so-poetically.

Every once in a while, as if remembering its duty, the sun showed its face through a break in the clouds. All we could hear were the screeches of the crows and the rush of water. Someday, somewhere, I will see this scene, I felt. The opposite of deja vu - not the feeling that I had already seen what was around me, but the premonition that I would some day. This premonition reached out its long hand and grabbed my mind tight. I could see myself in its grip. There at its fingertips was me. Me in the future, grown old. Of course, I couldn't see what I looked like.

but I did crave some of the kooky outlandish writing that I've come to know and love Murakami for.

Guess The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is the next Murakami on my list. Will it be bizarre enough?

Haruki Murakami - Kafka On The Shore

Surrealism. I've reached the conclusion that it's the only word that can be used to describe Murakami's books. Kafka on the Shore is no exception. Leeches and fish rain down, there's a character called Johnnie Walker, and another called Colonel Saunders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame), a mysterious childhood "accident" results in one of the characters being able to speak to cats, and there's a portal to a parallel universe. The book follows two characters in interleaving chapters: Fifteen year old runaway, Kafka Tamura and Nakata, an elderly man who is considered "dumb" by most as he is unable to read or write. While neither of them are aware of the other's existence, there's a greater (almost supernatural) force that connects them.

Kafka ran away from home, after this father had cursed him with the Oedipus prophecy: that he would kill his father, and sleep with his mother and sister. His mother and sister had left home when he was merely four years old, and he has no recollection of them whatsoever. He figures he just has to be the toughest fifteen year old boy. Or, so "a boy called Crow" tells him.

And I bet the longer I live, the emptier, the more worthless, I'll become. Something's wrong with this picture. Life isn't supposed to turn out like this! Isn't it possible to shift direction, to change where I'm headed?"

Then there's Nakata, who fell unconscious after a bizarre attack while he was still at school. This so-called "attack" left sixteen children unconscious, but when they came to, their memories and intelligence was left intact. They simply had no recollection of the event itself. Nakata, however, lost all his intelligence, and his ability to read or write. Instead, he was bestowed with the ability to talk to cats, which led to him earning a little money by finding lost cats, in addition to the government "sub city" (subsidy) he received.

Kafka runs away to Takamatsu in Shikoku, and starts working in a small private library. He befriends the librarian, Oshima, as well as gets closer to the beautiful albeit melancholy Ms. Saeki, the manager - a lady who still mourns the demise of her long lost love, who was killed about thirty years previously.

Nakata, on the other hand, runs into a dangerous man, Johnnie Walker, in Kafka's hometown, who is kidnapping cats, and then killing them brutally in order to make a flute of their souls. In order to save the cats, Nakata ends up killing the man and then following his "fate" - he doesn't know what it is, but he'll know it when he sees it.

This was an obscure novel, which on finishing, I had more questions than answers. Who is "the boy named crow"? Did Kafka succumb to his fate, or did he manage to avoid it? Can ghosts of living people exist? Can ghosts of people's past exist? What connected the two characters? And, what actually happened to Nakata in his childhood, that left him bereft of his intelligence?

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed this book, as I do most Murakamis. And, I would recommend it. Just remember, if and when you read it, it'll be a hell of a ride, and you'll be second guessing everything right till the last page - and beyond. While some bits were tedious to read, all in all, the characters and the surrealism made it a must-read for me.

Note: Kafka on the Shore is the first Murakami I ever had on my shelf. It was given to me as a present sometime in 2008, and I kept "saving it" for the right occasion. I planned on reading it when I went on holiday to Barbados last year, as part of the Japanese Literature Challenge 3 hosted by Bellezza last year, and a couple of other times as well. Finally read it about a year later, while the Japanese Literature Challenge 4 is being held. Have been meaning to write a post about the challenge itself for awhile, but kept getting sidetracked. Apologies.

Anyway, head over to Bellezza's, to find more reviews of Japanese Literature, and to see what everyone else is reading. Hope to see some of your reviews around as well. :)

Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

The amazing thing about Murakami's books is, you never know what you're going to get - when that bridge between reality and surrealism will get crossed, and, what avenues the surrealism will take. Past experiences with Murakami have also taught me that the story is not going to be like anything I've read before. Experience is a great teacher. A Wild Sheep Chase, originally published in the early 1980s, is literally the story about a young man (who is a partner at an ad agency and PR firm) and his girlfriend's (a girl with the most sensual ears) quest to find a sheep - not just any sheep, but a sheep with a star on its back; a sheep that, by all rights, shouldn't exist in Japan, where all sheep breeds have always been monitored and documented closely. You could say that their search is a metaphorical wild goose chase, but....

So, what's special about the sheep with the star on its back? Well, he's this omnipotent super-intelligent power, that takes over human beings, and makes them immense despite their innate mediocrity. However, when the sheep's finished using one person, it leaves the body, in search for its next target, leaving the previous inhabitant sheepless.

In the story, the sheep had inhabited inside the right-wing Boss, a character who sat at top of the Tokyo food chain. Boss was mediocre; there was nothing special about him, until the sheep took over, and made him the single power that controlled almost all the advertising, stock markets and even information services in Tokyo. In 1936, Boss had been diagnosed with a fairly large brain tumour, which hadn't killed him - the miracle lay in him still being alive! Now, sheepless, the boss is at the brink of death, and his right-hand man manages to corner the book's narrator to search for the sheep, so that the Boss can be effectively replaced at the top, and the network built over the years will not disintegrate into nothing. The narrator does attempt putting a feeble fight, when he's cornered, but, the rest, as they say, is history.

Nor do you know where you stand. Now listen, I thought it over last night. And it struck me. What have I got to feel threatened about? Next to nothing. I broke up with my wife, I plan to quit my job today, my apartment is rented, and I have no furnishings worth worrying about. By way of holdings, I've got maybe two million yen in savings, a used car, and a cat who's getting on in years. My clothes are all out of fashion, and my records are ancient. I've made no name for myself, have no social credibility, no sex appeal, no talent. I'm not so young anymore, and I'm always saying dumb things that I later regret. In a word, to borrow your turn of phrase, I am an utterly mediocre person. What have I got to lose? If you can think of anything, clue me in, why don't you?

And yes, that's the narrator for you! You might have noticed I haven't used any names - just references - and that's because Murakami himself doesn't use any names in the books.

The book is a timeless universal one, where the narrator could have as easily been running an ad agency in the States, as in London, as in... well, Tokyo! Quoting Murakami:

There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. It'd be like an aquarium without water. Why, 95 percent of the information that reaches you has already been preselected and paid for.

The journey taken by the nameless narrator and his girlfriend takes them to places far and remote, where the population is in the thousands. They meet plenty of fascinating people referred to as the Sheep Professor - someone who was once inhabited by the sheep, but is now sheepless, and has devoted the rest of his life searching for the sheep; the Sheep Man - a person who is half-sheep, half-man; and Rat - an old friend of the narrator, who actually lands the narrator in his present situation.

While the narrator undergoes a physically challenging and mentally exhausting journey (peppered with sex, cigarettes, alcohol, and Sherlock Holmes), the reader embarks on a philosophical journey, in order to determine what the search is actually for. What does the sheep symbolise? Totalitarian power? The devil? And, what is the sheep searching for, that makes him constantly discard people and occupy others? Sufficient weakness to takeover, and turn the victim's weaknesses into a thing of the past? And, what will the outcome of this search be? Will sheep end up ruling the world, by occupying people, through their supreme intelligence?

Murakami's casual style of writing, filled with modern day references and thought-provoking allegories makes for a good read. Add to that the surrealism, the randomness, and the incredibly fascinating characters, and the good read becomes and extremely captivating one.

Haruki Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

This is a short hundred and eighty page book, which has Murakami talk about his life, and the importance of running in it. It's a quick-paced interesting read for everyone - be it a marathon runner, or a marathon reader. You can call it an autobiography, a memoir, a travel journal, or a training diary - the book easily fits all of the above descriptions.  Murakami started running at the age of thirty-three, the age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. And in his words, it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist. 

 What initially seemed like a way to stay in shape, while writing his novels, Murakami came to find a deeper spiritual bond with running, and throughout the book, he draws out the parallels between writing a novel and running. 

Fortunately, these two disciplines - focus and endurance - are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training. You'll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down everyday at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of muscles I wrote of a moment ago. You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to writ every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you'll expand the limits of what you're able to do. Almost imperceptibly, you'll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner's physique. 

However, while this book talks of the importance of running in Murakami's life, it is, by no means, preachy. It doesn't insist that the reader start running. In fact, he openly says that long distance-running is not for everyone, and if this book convinces someone to run, well and good, but if someone doesn't enjoy running, they'll never be able to continue with it, patiently. 

As the book progresses, Murakami's focus shifts from marathons (including one that lasted over 60 miles!), to triathlons, and his thoughts during the event. It talks of his training, and the competition with himself to beat a certain time. It talks of the horrors of training for the cycling part of the triathlon and the challenges he's faced with the swimming. As someone who tries to run at least one marathon a year (and always complete it, running - not walking), and has rarely been sidetracked due to injury or illness, Murakami's book is a revelation of sorts. It mentions the typical marathon runner's dilemma : the toughest part of the marathon comes after twenty-two miles are done. It discusses the solitary nature of running, as well how this sometimes brings great pleasure: be it due to the beautiful girl whose name he has never known, or due to running with John Irving, or to simply enjoy the music. 

With the London Marathon being the hot topic on everyone's lips for the last couple of weeks, this book immediately made it to the bestsellers list at most bookstores. Ironically enough, Murakami never mentions running a London marathon, although he has talks of his experiences running the New York marathon multiple times, as well as the marathons at Greece, Honolulu, Boston and Japan. 

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I picked up this book. I've read just the one book by Murakami (Norwegian Wood), and I am not a long distance runner. I do, however, enjoy swimming and its solitary nature, so yes - I can relate to a fair few emotions and philosophies the author discusses. But... I digress. I don't even know why I picked up this book. However, I did enjoy reading it, and while I don't have what it takes to be a long-distance runner, I honestly admire Murakami's commitment to the sport. 

Overall, I'd say a 6 on 10 - maybe if I'd read more of Murakami (I do have a couple of his books on my reading list), or if I was a long-distance runner, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. If you're a bigger Murakami fan than I am, or if you have an interest in long-distance running, pick up this book... 

Oh, To Be A Genius At 29

Reading The Great Gatsby earlier in this year was an incredible experience, and I'm pretty sure it's going to join The Fountainhead and A Catcher In The Rye in my list of annual reads. So, I wasn't completely surprised when I came across the following comment from the famous Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami, in his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. 

 Gatsby really is an outstanding novel. I never get tired of it, no matter how many times I read it. It's the kind of literature that nourishes you as you read, and every time I do I'm struck by something new, and experience a fresh reaction to it. I find it amazing how such a young writer, only twenty-nine at the time, could grasp - so insightfully, so equitably, and so warmly - the realities of life. How was this possible? The more I think about it, and the more I read the novel, the more mysterious it all is. 

I agree with every single word of the above - and if you haven't read The Great Gatsby yet, please do. If you have, what do you think? Do you agree? Does it make you want to read more of Fitzgerald's work?  

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

So far, this year, I’ve read two books that can only be described as ‘coming of age’ books. This year, I’ve read two books based in Tokyo, where the protagonist comes from some small village in Japan, and have come to Tokyo with a purpose. This year, I’ve read two books that have the title of a Beatles song (well, one of them has a title from a Lennon song). And both books have been written by different authors! (The other book was David Mitchell’s Number9Dream. Mitchell’s oftened been likened to Murakami, so...)

As the plane touches down in Germany, an instrumental version of the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood comes on, which results in the protagonist, forty year old Watanabe, reflecting on his college days in Tokyo in 1968, and his two great loves. The book’s title, inspired by the Beatles song, pretty much sums up the story:

I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me...

The two great loves: Naoko, the girl who used to go out with his best friend from high school, Kizuki, who killed himself when he was seventeen; and Midori: the impulsive, slightly twisted girl, who delights in talking about sex and wearing short skirts.

After Kizuki’s untimely and sad death, Naoko and Watanabe lose touch, until they bump into each other on a crowded train. They attempt to revive their friendship, and while they don’t talk much about the only common factor, they start going for long walks and its mostly Naoko that does the talking, and the protagonist that listens. On her twentieth birthday, the two of them end up sleeping together, after which Naoko troubled by emotions and vulnerability admits herself in a sanitarium far away from civilization.

While she’s in the sanitarium, the vivacious Midori befriends Watanabe, and they end up spending a fair bit of time together, talking about life and things. Midori’s a less emotional, more practical girl, who speaks openly about things most other girls would consider taboo (this is highlighted by the fact that Watanabe is surprised about how open she is, specially when she asks him to take her to a pornographic movie). As their friendship grows, so much so that they spend almost every Sunday together, and Watanabe even spends some time taking care of her father in a hospital while she takes some time off for herself. However, while she’s open and shares the details of her life with him, he’s still not told her the truth about where Naoko is, and why they barely spend time together, leading her to believe that she’s a married woman.

In the mean time, Watanabe visits Naoko in the sanitarium, meets Reiko (Naoko’s roommate) and is pleased to find that Naoko is doing better, and he promises to wait for her, ‘til she’s ready to return. He even asks her to move in with him, when he rents a flat in Tokyo. While he visits her, the three of them (Reiko, Naoko and Watanabe) sing songs, with Reiko playing the guitar. The songs they sing include Norwegian Wood (obviously), Michelle, Nowhere Man, Julia, Lemon Tree, 500 miles, and other classics.

That’s who Watanabe is, to both girls: the savior; someone who’s always there, with a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear; someone who is intelligent, and caring. He tries to amuse them with funny stories about his dorm mates, when they look like they need cheering, takes them to porn movies when they want to see one(!), goes to the ‘facility’ a couple of times to visit Naoko, and writes to her every weekend. He even relates the story of Reiko, and how she ended up where she was, after she feels at ease with him and talks to him. In fact, she says that he’s one of those people who’s good, and can save someone from their monsters. However, at this point, I am compelled to say that while some critics have said his character is close to Holden Caulfield’s, I beg to differ. For starters, Caulfield was the one who needed saving in that book, he wasn’t the savior. While Murakami’s tried hard to stress on the fact that Watanabe ‘talks funny’, it’s not “Caulfield”-esque.

This is a sad book, reverberating of death, suicide, losing people and trying to move on. It almost seems like a reprise of Norwegian Wood, which is haunting, and melancholy (and when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown). Another property of this book is that it’s full of sex. Unusually so - casual sex, with Watanabe and one of his dorm mates going out to pick up girls for one-night stands regularly, despite Watanabe having Naoko, and his friend a girlfriend. Sex and love are distanced, and at occasions, the author seems to resort to the ‘sex seems like the most appropriate thing at this point’ cliche. At some times, it genuinely surprised me (wouldn’t want to ruin it for you), as did the detail and the emphasis on it. There is also a lesbian scene, detailed, between a married thirty year old woman and her thirteen year old student. It begs the question: Was sex in the 1968-70 Tokyo, in the midst of civil unrest as the students called for a revolution really that casual and indifferent?

This is the first book I’ve read by Murakami, and while I have mixed feelings about it, there is something about the book that makes me want to read more by the author. I can’t quite put a finger on it - whether it’s the simplicity, the beautiful writing, some great music references (from Bach to Beatles to Rolling Stones), or some great literature references (F Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Mann etc). The characters are interesting, and while I found Naoko slightly annoying (although, to be fair, her character’s witnessed the suicide of her older sister and her high school sweetheart, both of whom had apparently perfect lives), Watanabe a little too goody-two-shoes and Midori half-crazy, at some point or the other, I could relate to and sympathize with all the characters.

Overall, a 7 on 10, and more Murakami on my reading list.