The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Publication history

The original Japanese edition was released in three parts, which make up the three "books" of the single-volume English-language version.

Book of the Thieving Magpie (泥棒かささぎ編, Dorobō Kasasagi-hen)

Book of the Prophesying Bird (予言する鳥編, Yogensuru Tori-hen)

Book of the Bird-Catcher Man (鳥刺し男編, Torisashi Otoko-hen)

In English translation, two chapters were originally published in The New Yorker under the titles "The Zoo Attack" on July 31, 1995, and "Another Way to Die" on January 20, 1997. A slightly different version of the first chapter translated by Alfred Birnbaum was published in the collection The Elephant Vanishes under the title "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women". In addition, the character name Noboru Wataya appears in the short story "Family Affair" in The Elephant Vanishes. While having a similar personality and background, the character is not related to the one in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle of the same name. Noboru Wataya is also used in Jay Rubin's translation of the title short story in The Elephant Vanishes.

In May 2010, Harvill Secker published the Limited Centenary Edition of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to celebrate the publisher's hundredth year of operation. It was limited to 2,500 copies.

Plot summary

The first part, "The Thieving Magpie", begins with the narrator, Toru Okada, a low-key and unemployed lawyer's assistant, being tasked by his wife, Kumiko, to find their missing cat. Kumiko suggests looking in the alley, a closed-off strip of land behind their house. After Toru stays there for a while with no luck, May Kasahara, a teenager who had been watching him camping out in the alley for some time, questions him. She invites him to her house to sit on the patio and look over an abandoned house she says is a popular hangout for the stray cats. The abandoned house is revealed to possibly contain some strange omen, as it had brought bad luck to all of its prior tenants. It also contains an empty well. Toru receives sexual phone calls from a woman who says she knows him. He also receives a phone call from Malta Kano who asks to meet with him.

Kumiko calls Toru to explain that he should meet with the clairvoyant Malta Kano, who will help with finding the cat. Malta Kano had come recommended by Kumiko's brother, Noboru Wataya, which is also the name given to the cat. Kumiko's family believes in fortune-telling and had previously stipulated that the couple meet with an elderly man, Mr. Honda, for consultations on a regular basis, which they did for some time. (Instead of giving advice, he spends most of their sessions retelling the same story of his experience in the Kwantung Army in the lost tank battle with the Russians at Nomonhan on the Manchukuo-Russian border during World War II.) Toru meets the mysterious Malta Kano at a busy hotel restaurant, and she tasks her sister Creta Kano to further the work. Both sisters wear unusual clothing: Malta a large red hat and Creta unstylish 1960s clothing. Creta meets Toru at his home and begins to tell him the story of her past, involving being raped by Noboru, but abruptly leaves. Toru notices Kumiko is wearing perfume that has been gifted to her by some unknown person. The cat remains missing. Toru is contacted by Lieutenant Mamiya, who informs Toru that Mamiya's old war friend corporal Honda has died and that Mamiya wishes to visit Toru to drop off an item that Honda had bequeathed to him. The first section ends with Lieutenant Mamiya arriving and telling Toru a long tale about his eerie and mystical wartime experiences in Manchukuo in the Kwantung Army, where he sees a man skinned alive. Mamiya was also left to die in a deep well before being saved by corporal Honda. The gift from Honda is an empty box.

Kumiko is revealed to be missing at the start of the second part, "Bird as Prophet". Shortly after, Toru finds out through a meeting with Noboru and Malta that Kumiko has apparently been spending time with another man and wants to end her relationship with Toru. Confused, Toru tries several things to calm himself and think through the situation: talking and taking up work with May Kasahara, hiding at the bottom of the well, and loitering around the city looking at people. Work with May involves tallying up people with some degree of baldness at a subway line for a wig company. While at the bottom of the well (of the abandoned house), Toru reminisces about earlier times with Kumiko, including their first date to an aquarium where they looked at jellyfish. He also experiences a dreamlike sequence where he enters a hotel room and speaks with a woman, and notices a strange blue mark on his cheek after he leaves the well. While loitering in the city, he spends most of the day sitting outside a donut shop and people-watching. Through this activity, Toru encounters a well-dressed woman and also a singer he recognizes from his past, whom he follows and beats with a bat after getting ambushed by him.

Main characters

While this book has many major and minor characters, these are among the most important:

Toru Okada: The narrator and protagonist, Toru is a passive and often apathetic young man living in suburban Japan. He is Kumiko's husband and continually follows the orders or wishes of others. Toru is portrayed as an average man and the embodiment of passivity. He is a legal aid who is considering a law degree but has chosen to leave his job at a legal firm. He spends his days doing house chores, cooking pasta, listening to the radio, and searching for their missing cat. At the beginning of the novel, his life is mundane. Toru spends a lot of time alone and the reader can see that he is not in control of many aspects of his life. His search for their missing cat leads him into interesting adventures.

Kumiko Okada: Kumiko is Toru's wife and, as the breadwinner of the couple, is the more autonomous of the two. She works in the publishing business. Following the disappearance of their cat, she disappears as well. Kumiko's childhood was stifling because her parents wanted her to take the place of an older sister who had committed suicide at a very young age, an event that became an obsession of their older brother, Noboru Wataya.

Noboru Wataya: Noboru is Kumiko's older brother. He is presented as a mediagenic figure; the public loves him, but Toru cannot stand him. Noboru first appears as an academic, becomes a politician during the course of the story, and has no apparent personal life. He is said to be hidden behind a façade — all style, and no substance. He is the antagonist. Noboru is constantly changing his image to defeat his opponents, but nobody seems to notice his inconsistencies except Toru. The relationship between Toru and Noboru can be compared to that of good versus evil. ("Noboru Wataya" is also the name Toru and Kumiko gave to their pet cat, whom Toru later renames Mackerel; the character name also appeared in "The Elephant Vanishes" and "Family Affair", both translated by Jay Rubin, in The Elephant Vanishes collection.)

May Kasahara: May is a teenage girl who should be in school, but, by choice, is not. Toru and May carry on a fairly constant exchange throughout a good deal of the novel; when May is not present, she writes letters to him. Their conversations in person are often bizarre and revolve around death and the deterioration of human life. Even more bizarre is the cheerful and decidedly non-serious air with which these conversations take place.

Themes

Desire: The feeling of desire arises throughout the novel in a variety of characters. Throughout the novel, desire seems to manifest itself in negative and almost sickening ways. One example, is displayed through Noboru Wataya, who desires power. This desire for power brings him to commit incestuous acts with his two younger sisters, one sister being alive with the other sister being deceased. In the beginning, Toru desires to make his wife happy by going on long day trips to find her missing cat. His desire for her leads him to strange places where he discovers more about his inner self. Kumiko has many sexual desires which leads her to be unfaithful to Toru, resulting in Kumiko catching an STD. Throughout the novel desire leads the characters to dark places.

Power: The characters in the novel are constantly gaining or losing power and the plot develops around this ever-changing factor. Noboru Wataya is mainly focused on gaining power which in turn causes his younger sister Kumiko to lose power to him, she becomes a victim of his desire for power. The loss of power of the character Kumiko leads Toru to gain power. Once Kumiko goes missing, this event forces Toru to find power within him to step out of his normalcy and comfort zone to find Kumiko and save her from her brother. This leads him on a mission to set Kumiko free of the reins her brother holds her in. Translating to a gain in his sense of power. He finds power within himself and his desire to set Kumiko free. Power also shows in the characters as they try to gain control over their own emotions.

Polar opposites: Throughout the novel, one can see many examples of the characters being polar opposites. One main polar opposite occurs in the beginning of the book between the two women in Toru's life. The mysterious woman who calls Toru throughout the beginning presents herself very sexually and powerful. She is very confident in speaking with Toru even while he is resistant to hearing what she has to say. Whereas, Kumiko, Toru's wife, is very shy and soft spoken in the interactions with Toru. Another example of polar opposites is between Noboru Wataya, Kumiko's Brother, and Toru. Noboru Wataya is hungry for power and is presented as a strong and disrespectful character. Whereas, Toru is presented as a very shy, soft spoken, respectful, and down to earth character. Creta Kano points out this polar opposite within the novel stating "Noboru Wataya is a person who belongs to a world that is the exact opposite of yours." The contrast of polar opposite characters provides more depth and individuality to each character alone.

English translation

The English translation of the novel was carried out by Jay Rubin. In addition to notable differences between the Japanese and English versions, there are also differences between the original Japanese hardcover and paperback editions.

Further differences exist between the American and British editions, but these are much more superficial.

The German translation by Giovanni and Ditte Bandini is based on the English translation, not on the Japanese original.

Nearly 20 years after the first translation Ursula Gräfe translated the book from the Japanese original, including also the missing chapters. 'Die Chroniken des Aufziehvogels'.

The Dutch translation by Jacques Westerhoven was translated directly from the Japanese original, therefore includes the missing parts and chapters, and follows the same order as the Japanese version.

Chapters and parts removed from English translation

Some chapters and paragraphs of the Japanese paperback edition were not included in the English translation. Translator Jay Rubin cut about 61 of 1,379 pages, including three chapters (Book 2 Chapters

15, 18, and part of 17; and Book 3 Chapter 26). Combining the original three-volumes (Japanese) would have been too long, and so the publisher requested that ~25,000 words be cut for the English translation, even though Rubin had presented them a complete translation along with the requested abridged version.

These chapters contain plot elements not found elsewhere in the book. For example, the two missing chapters from the second volume of the original three-volume elaborate on the relationship between Toru Okada and Creta Kano, and a "hearing" of the wind-up bird as Toru burns a box of Kumiko's belongings (Book 2 Chapter 15). In the third volume, the computer conversation between Toru and Noboru Wataya (Book 3 Chapter 26) and Toru's encounter with Ushikawa at the train station are also omitted.

In addition to reducing the word count, some chapters were moved ahead of others, taking them out of the context of the original order. At the start of Book 3 the chapters have been rearranged. Rubin combined two chapters

called "May Kasahara's POV" and moved the "Hanging

House" chapter to make the chronology of events consistent.

Book 2 chapter 15 summary: In chapter 15 Toru awakens to Creta Kano who mysteriously appeared in his bed the night before. She tells him that she has lost her name and asks if he would like to flee Japan with her. To this request he agrees and leaves behind memorabilia of his old life with his wife. While Toru is in town gathering supplies for his flee he reads an article about Noboru Wataya, the article explains that Noboru is now trying to become a politician.

Chapter 17 is not completely removed, instead the excerpt where Toru takes passport photos is removed and the very lengthy conversation Toru has with his uncle about buying real estate is condensed into one English paragraph.

Reception

Kirkus Reviews wrote that the novel was "a major work bringing signature themes of alienation, dislocation, and nameless fears through the saga of a gentle man forced to trade the familiar for the utterly unknown" and "a fully mature, engrossing tale of individual and national destinies entwined" that would be "hard to surpass."

Michiko Kakutani, in The New York Times, regarded the novel as "a wildly ambitious book that not only recapitulates the themes, motifs and preoccupations of his earlier work, but also aspires to invest that material with weighty mythic and historical significance" though was "only intermittently successful." While she finds that the novel succeeds in articulating that the world is "a mysterious place", that same confusion also "seems so messy that its refusal of closure feels less like an artistic choice than simple laziness".

Legacy

Many regard The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as Murakami's masterpiece, and it appeared in The Telegraph's 2014 list of the 10 all-time greatest Asian novels.

Adaptation

An adaptation of the novel was created by Stephen Earnhart; a live production of it premiered in 2011 at the Edinburgh International Festival.