From Kenza: Desire

Murakami elaborates on a range of human desires and each character’s attempts to obtain the power to control what they need in life. One route followed is the path of sexual development often linked to each character's journey of self discovery. Some characters in the novel are portrayed as victims of desire, whether their own or that of others. These characters include Toru, Kumiko, Noburo Wataya and Creta Kano. Of these, Kumiko is the one that suffers the most from the things she does in order to deal with her restlessness and unhappiness by attempting fill the vacuum by transposing her inexpressible desires through a sexual outlet. Her desire leads her to commit adultery with another man, but results only in abysmal self-hatred and frustration. She abandons everything she has worked for and put up with in the last six years and moves away from her home. May Kasahara’s desire is portrayed differently. Her part in the motorcycle accident that killed her boyfriend can be seen as her desire to indulge some uncontrollable part of herself. It is almost as if she can’t help herself from testing her limits until she proves the control she can have over herself. Noburo Wataya is another character that is a victim of desire. The desire he feels has to do with his growing thirst for power. The many and various forms of desire expressed by the characters imply how we are often victims of impulses we do not understand and have difficulty controlling.

From Kenza: Why so much violence?

Violence is omnipresent in this novel. It is both vivid and surreal.  Creta's experience growing up with intense physical pain is conveyed through intense descriptions so we become aware of the different levels of pain that a human being is able to feel. This horrifying pain is portrayed as a form of violence because it is uncontrollable, unpredictable and unstoppable. Murakami uses this violence to steep the reader into the lives of his characters and to emphasize how each suffers differently from an other. Furthermore, we find suffering in the context and the aftermath of war.  The Manchurian war has a lasting effect on the soldiers that fought in it. It is portrayed as another type of violence and pain. Lieutenant Mamiya, is forever cursed by the events of the war and his personal experiences. He continues to feel a constant void in his life and is frustrated by his inability to die, regardless of the horrifying conditions he has endured. Violence surrounds every character and is omnipresent in the novel. Descriptions such as that of a man being skinned alive by Mongol bandits who then finish the event by talking about skinning techniques are shocking for the reader. By including unconventional violence through out the novel, Murakami emphasizes its omnipresence in human experience.

From Kenza: Parallels - Creta and Kumiko

Throughout Book 2 Murakami makes us believe that there is a definitive connection between Creta Kano and Kumiko. Although expressed differently, Murakami focuses on the pain felt by both characters. Kumiko undergoes inner damage that she is unable to confess to Toru, her husband. This agony is revealed through flashbacks when Toru recalls certain events in the first six years of their marriage, especially in relation to the abortion, and Kumiko's inability to express her sentiments or explain what she is struggling with. Creta Kano also experiences tremendous pain. Creta Kano's pain is described differently. She undergoes three stages of intense physical pain but unlike Kumiko, Creta succeeds in finding herself close to the final stage of pain. The parallel created between Creta Kano and Kumiko is best noticed through Toru's point of view during his supernatural dreams which he discovers, were controlled by Creta. Creta slowly impersonates Kumiko as she becomes more present during Toru's life at the same time Kumiko and Toru's marriage starts to fall apart and the distance between them becomes more evident. Toru also experiences a change in his inner self and his daily routines. He strives to create his identity and constantly searches for himself. Toru then becomes less mundane and crosses the line between reality and the supernatural partly because of Creta's growing presence in his life. Kumiko, May Kasahara and Creta are the women who seem to effect Toru's life the most. However, Kumiko and Creta's combined effect on the protagonist's life is profound and because of this Toru seems to find himself on another level that defies normality as we know it.

I believe this a scene from a play of the wind up bird chronicle, I found it really interesting how the well looks like an eye from below. It looked like a spiritual reference since Toru is down the well in search for answers, seemed like he was soul searching. But of course we all know the light is the open part of the well. My question is:
Who is the other character beside him?
Is she with him in the well? or is it a flashback?

From Kenza: Life Like a Dream

I agree when you state that in the novel there is a thin line between dream and reality. Murakami gives the impression that most of the novel takes place as much in reality and the actual events of daily life as well as in the dreams. Furthermore, Murakami reveals much more details about his characters during their dreams. When Lieutenant Mamiya shares his fascinating story to Toru and states, "Life went by as a dream" (133) The idea behind this phrase also conveys the emptiness of Lieutenant Mamiya's life after he discovers he is "unable to die." Lieutenant Mamiya gives us the impression that he "dragged" himself through life and that is was a never ending dream even though he risked his life numerous times. When Toru decides to go into the well Murakami uses flashbacks to Toru's previous life to reveal other aspects of Kumiko as well Toru. The numerous references to dreams and dream-like situations is a recurring motif that reveal other sides to each character in the novel.

May Kashara's Squirrel Allusion

"Maybe I hit my head in the accident, and the position of my brain got messed up. Or maybe the psychological shock of it started me covering up all kinds of memories, the way a squirrel hides a nut and forgets where he's buried it. (have you ever seen that happen, Mr. Wind-up Bird? I have. When I was little. I though the stupid squirrel was sooo funny! It never occurred to me the same thing was going to happen to me." (page 462)
This passage is an extract from one of May's letters to Toru Okada. She questions her decision of going to a wig company and is unable to find a sustainable answer. The allusion to the squirrel forgetting where he has hidden a nut is actually similar to many human beings. We sometimes do things without truly knowing why we are doing it. I think that Toru Okada is somewhat concerned by this topic because it would almost seem as though his daily activities have no definite or explicit purpose. He no longer has a job, his wife has left him, he is on a search for something unknown to him and the events in his life are all extremely confusing.
This equally reminds me of May's speech about death. She mentioned that without death, life would not be deep anymore because we would not have to think about these philosophical questions about the after life or what the purpose of life is. It would seem that the squirrel epitomizes this. It cannot remember the location of an item that is of significant importance to it. If we were to ponder deeply about the true purpose of all of our actions, I am quite sure that the answer would not come very quickly. 

Life as a Revolving Door (Book 3)

In the third and final section of this novel, Nutmeg tells Toru Okada about the opera The Magic Flute because she asked him where he thought he would be saving Kumiko from. All that Toru was able to answer to this was, "Somewhere far away." (page 406) It is evident that he does not know anything about Kumiko's precise situation and even less about where she is yet he is determined that his duty is to save her from wherever she finds herself. Nutmeg mentions a conflict between "the land of night" and "the land of day" in the opera which is a parallel to Toru's situation with Kumiko. She has utterly disappeared from his life as though she were now living in an unknown world. On page 411, Nutmeg is telling Toru Okada about the massacre of the animals in the zoo during the war. After the soldiers had finished all of the killings, Nutmeg's father is taken by an overwhelming calmness and an interesting thought comes to his mind, "Maybe the world was like a revolving door, it occurred to him as his consciousness was fading away. And which section you ended up in was just a matter of where your foot happened to fall. There were tigers in one section, but no tigers in another. Maybe it was as simple as taht. And there was no logical continuity from one section to another." (page 411) This passage reminds me of the two worlds that Nutmeg was discussing in the opera. I love this image of the revolving door because it is true that some revolving doors move very fast and that it is difficult to have complete control over them. This correlates with the perception section in TOK and the article entitled "In the Mind's Eye" where the author suggested that there were other dimensions that we were incapable of seeing. If one were to follow Murikami's logic in this particular case, then everything is based on pure coincidence: you are not able of predicting which world you will fall into. Will it be the one with the tigers or the one without them? 

The Return of NW the cat

This novel is full of symbols, and so I felt that when the cat returned it was a "sign" perhaps that the interrupted flow was going to begin "flowing" again. The cat's disappearance was the first bizarre event  that was discussed in the novel; it can be seen as the trigger of the chain of bizarre events that occurred after. Therefore, the fact that the cat returned, after a year, is once again a strange and inexplicable coincidence. Toru also chose to change the name of his pet which can also be interpreted as a transition in his life. 

From Siham: (Kumiko’s Letter): Impressions

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle # 17

Kumiko’s letter is quite a revelation as there were hints throughout the book of suspicion concerning her real intentions in leaving Toru. Her last letter conveys another Kumiko that is more vulnerable and reckless, since she is ready to kill her brother. It appears as a shock when she reveals that Noboru has abused her, which explains why she left, as she was trapped and manipulated by him. Noboru’s power over women is conveyed through the similarities between Creta Kano and Kumiko, “ I did not sleep with just one man. I slept with many other men. Too many too count. I myself have no idea what caused me to do such a thing. Looking back upon it now, I think it may have been my brother’s influence.” (602) It feels like Noburu triggers the worst inner instincts in them, and exposes them to the outer world, as both Creta and Kumiko feel the need to sleep with other men with no control over their own bodies. There is this numbness and feeling of darkness that is recurrent when they talk about their experience, as if they were trapped in the dark room 208 and could not escape Noboru’s control, unless someone went to save them.

Also, Mackerel could be compared to Kumiko as he left the house, but at the end found his way back to Toru; like Kumiko who confessed the truth about her brother to be issued from him. In a sense it is an accomplishment for Toru since his efforts were not meaningless and helped Kumiko hold on to the bit of hope she still had of stopping Noboru by killing him, even if it meant going to prison. Kumiko’s rejection was in fact not dictated not by her own feelings, but by the feeling of hatred that Noboru had, since he viewed Toru as the man that stole his sister and wanted to get her back by any malevolent means.

From Siham: Toru's Character

At the end of the novel, we can see that Toru’s character grew more complex through Murakami’s surrealistic descriptions, which convey a Toru with more than one personality. As soon as he meets Nutmeg, it’s a turning point for him as we can remark when he goes for the first time in her office and observes his worn out shoes, “ I felt with new intensity just how alone I was, just how far the world had left me behind. It was time for me to buy a new pair of shoes, I told myself. “ (365) The shoes are a symbol of Toru’s old life and how a change is needed for him in order to move forward.

 Murakami also compares him to a vacant house, “I struggled to superimpose my own image upon that of a vacant house. I thought of myself as a pillar, a wall, a ceiling, a floor, a window, a door, a stone.” (368) The imagery reflects Toru’s character in the way that he has been abandoned and has this emptiness within him that Murakami wants to emphasize.

There is a constant detachment too from normal people that is exhibited, as if Toru could simply not enter society and go back to the peaceful and quiet life he had before. He is so unaccustomed to the real world, that even newspapers appear to him as strange and empty. It seems that he only feels comfortable in an unreal setting like the fitting room for instance.

This detachment is also reflected in the confusion between the reality and his “dream”, as if he was torn apart between two different selves trying to separate. I think his dreams reflect what he wants to do in the real world, for example beating up Noboru Wataya with a baseball bat, “ Perhaps, up there, in the real world, I had actually struck him with the bat and injured him severely, and I was the only one who didn’t know about it.” (571) One part of him is trying to repress what his real emotions are and another part is a confusion of negative emotions of hatred and violence that cannot be suppressed. I also noticed that the actions he had in this other world had an impact on the real world, as after beating up Noboru, it was later told to us that he had a stroke in his way to a conference.

There is an obvious change of character in Toru, as he now takes action and has this fearless determination to have Kumiko back and is willing to risk his life because he knew it was his last chance. Even though, Toru struggles most of the book and fights for a cause that we thought of as hopeless, I think Kumiko leaving the house has taught him to never give up through all his unusual experiences, since the ending proves to be a revelation in reconnecting with her and saving her from Noboru’s abusive world.

From Siham (On The Portrayal of Women)

Murakami portrays women throughout the book as determined and independent, which contrasts with Toru’s character since he appears to be ambitionless in comparison to them. In the beginning of the book, we can already notice that Kumiko is an empowered woman since she cares for Toru financially and does not need to rely on him for anything. It almost feels like the roles are reversed since Toru finds a kind of escape from his boring reality in cooking and doing laundry like a traditional housewife and Kumiko finds her escape from Toru in her work and late hours to spend less time at home. Later in the book when Kumiko leaves the house, even if it was somewhat predictable since we knew that their marriage was not going well, it is a shock to know that Kumiko is not coming back and knew exactly what she was doing by leaving with that much determination. We can sense it in her letter to Toru afterwards, “ I have only one thing to ask you, and that is this: please don’t concern yourself about me anymore. Please don’t try to find me. Just forget about me and think about beginning a new life.” (277) By admitting that she had an affair, we can see that Kumiko is an honest woman that could not repress the sexual desire she never felt for Toru. Her letter, written in short affirmative sentences with no hesitation, shows how strong her character is, which leaves Toru powerless and dubious about what her real intentions were in leaving him.

Another strong female character later in the book is Nutmeg Akasaka and her impeccable physique, since she dresses perfectly which gives this kind of untouchable aura and her certainty about Toru’s “supernatural” power. It is not coincidental that Toru saw Nutmeg twice in an interval of a year, but I think Murakami wanted to exhibit the difference in the character of Toru in the second book in comparison to the third book. We can see that change because of Nutmeg; he is transformed and she gives him the outlet for the ambition that he lacked in the first and second book. In chapter 20: “Nutmeg’s story”, the summary of Nutmeg’s life is eye-opening giving us a more global comprehension of her character, since she came from a poor social background, but from an early age she already had this determination to be successful, “What she wanted more than anything was to learn a useful skill and make herself independent as soon as possible. She was in a place far away from her classmates and their comfortable enjoyment of high school life.” (471) Her passion for fashion and dedication to her work made her who she is, at the expense of her having human relations and friends. In addition, the fact that she knew that Toru had this “supernatural” power and how he could channel it, makes her character even more intuitive and strong.

Nutmeg’s success can also be reflected through her client list since the women that come to her have this inaccessible barrier with reality, “But around them lingered that special smell produced by a combination of power and money. The women themselves never made a show of it, but Nutmeg could tell from the style and fit of their clothes that they came from backgrounds of privilege.” (456) In a way, Murakami empowers them by that mysteriousness and secrecy, which makes them seem even more powerful. This consistent portrayal of women makes us discover the characters in more depth since we can compare them in order to have a better understanding of the view of women in the book.

From Siham (On Pathetic Fallacy in Book 3)

In the beginning of the third book, I noticed how recurrent Murakami used pathetic fallacy in order to reflect the feelings of Toru Okada as the winter approaches. There is this sense of timelessness that winter brings, as if Okada’s life was frozen since he does not get any calls and is trapped in his home in the torment of his own loneliness. I noticed that during the winter the wind up bird was not described, as if everyone wanted to avoid Toru’s solitary path. Moreover, the diction is stiff and the weather is emphasized by the repetitive use of unpleasant feelings like being cold, “The winter was a cold one, but I sometimes forgot to turn on the heat, unsure whether the cold was real or just something inside me. I would throw the switch only after a look at the thermometer had convinced me that it really was cold, but even so, the cold did not diminish”. (345) By that cold atmosphere, we can feel Toru is ill, being as he is trying to distance himself from his own reality since he knows the life he is currently living is based on the past, and the grief of Kumiko’s absence. On the other hand, when the spring comes it feels like Toru is given his life back as if it was his opportunity for a new start, “February came to an end, and March was half gone when the freezing cold began to relent somewhat. Warm winds blew up from the south. Buds appeared on the trees, and the new birds showed up in the garden.”(350) It feels like the spring announces the beginning of a summer full of new opportunities and encounters for Toru, since he now has the determination to work in order to buy the Miyawaki house. And by meeting Nutmeg on a hot summer day a year after he saw her for the first time, Murakami wants to reflect how much of a turn Toru’s life will take after all the routineness and normality that is conveyed in the two first books. All in all, Murakami’s pathetic fallacy conveys the changing state of Toru’s life, as he is striving for a change and has to cope with the pain and emptiness of his life by concentrating on his own future.

Lack of distinct character voice

While this novel is excellent in many ways I would also like to acknowledge one point that I found a bit on the down side. This is Murakami’s method of characterization. While this book has gone through translation in order for me as well as the rest of us to be able to read the book what was lost in the process of translation is in question. Several of the characters appeared to have the exactly same ‘voice’; there are several large passages where we are reading a letter or listening to a story told by a character other than our narrator (Mr. Okada) the protagonist, and the syntax remains the same for an elderly war veteran as for a young prostitute. This brings me to my next point, the small issue of all female characters being succubae (in other words a demon woman who has sexual intercourse with sleeping men); they phone Toru to molest his ears, enter his dreams in order to force themselves upon him, they tantalize and frustrate him before threatening his life or else pay hard currency for the privilege of sapping his spiritual energy. Despite their universally famished appetite for Toru’s spunk (in all senses of the word), the female characters only appear to obtain any sexual pleasure during adultery or rape. Leading on from this, there is a big problem with sex, which occurs frequently and takes on a level of spiritual significance. Sex can be a way of getting into somebody’s head and it is a small step to seeing this in spiritual or else supernatural terms, but it surely has to be fairly spectacular intercourse; that kind of inverted torture where a person can be drawn out to the edge of themselves. Unfortunately however, there is nothing about Toru’s many sexual adventures that make them appear above the level of a contact sport. Of course this is all very well for dispassionate Toru, still it becomes a bit boring to read and one begins to suspect all this sex has been put in to prove something. Fortunately though there is one positive force in the shape of Toru’s teenaged neighbor, May Kasahara. While she is yet another blood-sucking temptress she is the funniest, wisest, most realistic and thoroughly loveable character in the book. Still, I wasn’t really wasn’t convinced by his characterizations. Again there is a question mark over what might be lost in translation. What do you guys think? Have noticed anything irregular or disappointing in the book? 

From numbness to sensation

One contrasting view of this novel than the one I’ve proposed is that this is a story about moving from a position of numbness to a position of feeling. At the outset, Toru is completely vacant of passion. He is not worried or excited by this limbo in his career, he isn’t aware of his wife’s increasing absences and whenever anyone wants to see him, he has no plans. His central mission over the course of the novel is not to discover some profound intellectual truth or even a factual explanation of the events that are occurring, but merely to get in touch with how he feels, whether this might be drawn out of him by the stories and behaviors of other people (usually mirroring the same theme) or whether he might go down a well and deprive himself of sustenance and stimulation until that monster, emotion, finally emerges. Toru's world is an alien world where darkness gets encrusted in his soul, tormenting him to no end, driving him to descend to the depths of absolute darkness. When the goes into the well, it symbolizes death with consciousness as he sees that life is better lived in light. This poignant passage is reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr.'s words: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Nonetheless while these trips can be rather scary adventures, with a lot of darkness in the book, there’s also a lot of light and perhaps most importantly, a lot of beauty - of both the dark and light as well as the ambiguous variety.

The style of Murakami came across as pretty astonishing; it’s the manner by which he’s able to master both the art of being at once verbose and at other instances minimalist. This irked me at first when reading however despite crossing some complicated phrases and economical sentences, the main reason I read this 607 page book was because the author insisted on rephrasing and the repeating the same account or sentiment three times, after a while I decided that this was part of its genius edifice. It becomes quite amusing altogether. Also some of us might have noticed this while others may have not paid as much attention to the fact that the word weird is utilized more frequently than any other adjective. What I figured out was that this was that one word that allows Murakami to lead us seamlessly backwards and forwards between the real and the surreal. This writing style is definitely one of a kind; it is as though words are associated to certain switches in the book that we should search for as we’re reading. 

The story’s Main Theme and Motif: Recreation of one’s self.

As aforementioned in my post, seemingly independent story lines converge; this suggests that personal histories are entwined with the national histories both to determine an individual’s present and future life. So for Mr. Okada to bring back Kumiko, he would have to do the impossible; to change the events that are far beyond his control and power (family histories and national histories). This leads me to the focus of this second post, the theme and motif of freedom from the past and recreation of one’s self.

The question is can one recreate oneself? The notion that one can is a deeply modern idea. But such an idea presupposes an absolute freedom from the past, or in other words, absolute causal power, which makes sense only in a secular modern mind. To be self-made, one must have the power of a first cause. One must be a god to be able to create things. Marukami’s point is precisely that such is impossible because finite, fallible and fragile humans aren’t gods. If one cannot be the first cause, one’s past, to a great extent, determines future outcomes. One has only an illusion of recreation by changing clothes, perfumes or jobs. Such changes, however, are shallow and meaningless. A person might make changes like these in a uniform manner, without really thinking, though their substantive self still retains its deeply ingrained dispositions. What holds of individuals holds of nations, in this case Japan. For a nation is no more than the collection of such individuals and shares many properties with these individuals. 

The misfortune of the Okadas is that they both believed the impossible—that is, that they could live like gods. However, Kumiko’s disappearance and the actions that she feels to be most natural, but wishes not to be hers, show the wind-up bird effect (a deeply ingrained nature to act a certain way). Perhaps the best one can hope for is a transformation; a transformation presupposes that something remains the same. A transformation does not require the causal powers of the first cause aforesaid. This realization is what makes May (Toru’s nearby neighbor the most hopeful character in the novel. She suggests small transformations and as she had stated in chapter 2 of book 2: "Nothing good happens in this chapter," "The little things are important, Mr. Wind-Up Bird."(188)