Ornithological illustration of the Wind-up Bird

While searching for a visual representation of the wind-up bird, I found a picture depicting two birds upside down.  Their feet are like springs that can be wound-up.  Interestingly, the back of the bird whose spring is not wound-up resembles the dorsal fin of a fish, and it looks like its got fish scales.   

The phrases scribbled on the paper are descriptions of the wind-up bird taken from the novel pages eight and nine.

 

Source:

http://www.korou.amasoong.com/index.php?/gallery/wind-up-bird-an-ornithological-illustration/

Emotions

The more I read this book, the more I realize how skilled Murakami is at creating images. I previously posted about the image he attributed to the word "secrecy" and how he was able to give it more depth. On page 341, the main character says that he feels lonely and the author dedicates an entire paragraph to the description of loneliness. He says, "violent stab of loneliness," "long, sharp needles," "threatening metallic gleam of razor blades," and "roots of loneliness creeping through me." (p341) Although the first two metaphors explicitly associate loneliness to a sharp and harmful object, I prefer the last metaphor. By mention of the "roots" of this emotion, Murakami is making an allusion to nature; to me, this is all the more powerful because it implies that "loneliness" is an emotion that is always within us and that remains. For some reason, after reading this paragraph, the first image that was created in my mind was that of a snake. I imagine loneliness as a snake because it is a dangerous and sly creature who is usually hidden but when found, can be lethal.
Since the book centers essentially around the emotions of one main character, Murakami places great emphasis on the way he portrays them. For every sentiment Toru Okada has, the author dissects each and every one until every possible angle has been explored. I think that this is what makes the book so interesting because the main character, despite his somewhat atypical life, is a human being like each and every one of us, but the emotions he feels on a daily basis appear to be fascinating. Murakami's skill with similes and metaphors allows the reader to be entranced by the story and especially by the main character. 

Trip to the well (Part two)

What do you guys think that this trip to the well means? 
Is it a spiritual journey that he is going on because he feels lost? 
What is the symbolism behind it?

Dream and Reality (Parts one and two)

In Murakami’s novel, there is a thin line between dream and reality.  His dreams about Creta Kano may appear somewhat ‘normal’ at first. But as the novel continues and Creta lets us know that she is a “prostitute of the mind”, and that she knew very well what he dreamt about because she was basically the one controlling it. The effect of this is to make dream and reality closely linked so much so where you are unable to tell apart which events happened in reality and which ones didn’t. When the Lieutenant Mamiya is describing events back when he was on the war field, he mentions that, “[His] life went by as a dream.” (133) Although this may appear to not have much significance, this motif of a dream reoccurs throughout the novel in different times, in different circumstances, for different characters. Before Kumiko decides to leave Toru, she is talking to her husband and says, “’There’s a kind of gap between what I think is real and what’s really real. I get this feeling like some kind of little something or-other is there, somewhere inside me like a burglar is in the house, hiding in a closet... and it comes out every once in a while and messes up whatever order or logic I’ve established for myself. The way a magnet can make a machine go crazy.” (236)

As toru is in the well, he is dreaming (or not) of several things. We are confused as to if what is happening is a dream or not, and so is Toru. “Before dawn, in the bottom of the well, I had a dream. But it was not a dream. It was some kind of something that happened to take in the form of a dream.” (241)

The Human Nature (Part one)

In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’s second book, there is more and more ‘analysis’ of the human nature. It appears that a major bulk of the characters have a sort of supernatural power. To begin with, there is Malta Kano. Malta is able to predict events, and knows things. Although most fortunetellers pretend this is exactly what they know, they are obviously lying; however this is different for Malta. She genuinely knows certain facts and can predict events that are about so happen. Creta Kano, her sister, as a kid, was always in excruciating pain. Although this may not be called a supernatural power, it is something supernatural; this pain that she endured as a kid is not something that most, if not any, children are forced to experience. The next two character’s supernatural ‘powers’ are not as clear or unique as the previous ones, but still are put forth, by the author, as an odd supernatural characteristic. Kumiko appears to be able to tell when (and if) her husband was lying to her. In fact, Toru mentions that, “Her sensitivity to such things was frightening.” (103) Finally, Toru mentioned earlier that he had the ability to control and even ignore his emotions. The fact that Haruki Murakami created his characters this way, with certain unique features suggests that he is, in one way, analyzing the human nature, and in particular those things that we cannot control about ourselves. Additionally, through Kumiko’s dialogue with Toru about Noburu, we are shown the authors point of view as he suggests that he believes that, “we all have psychological problems to some extent.” (125) 

Comments

Reason and purpose: Throughout the whole novel, there is an omnipresence of a sense of reason and purpose. In Toru's first dream about Creta, he mentions explicity, "There was some kind of reason and purpose to all this." (102) It like if in his subconcious, he knew very well that this was not an another dream. Later in the novel, we are revealed that this in fact was not just another dream.

Weird: Like others have mentioned preivously, the novel is written in such a way where things are very weird. Just the diction used creates unexpected imagery, and as readers we are left feeling awkward. Toru describes one event of the novel the following way: "We had been playing our assigned roles on the office stage, but stepping down from the stage, abondoning the provisional images that we had been echanging there, we were both just unstable, awkward lumps of flesh, warm pieces of meat outfitted with digestive tracts and hearts and brains and reproductive organs." (106) Another weird part of the novel if when Kumiko is describing the first time she caught her brother masturbating, which could be a situation that any younger sister could encounter, she let's us know of a detail which sets this situation apart. Her brother was masturbating to their deceased sister's belongings.

Evil: Also, there are several elements of evil (which goes back to the title). In the neighborhood that Toru lives in, there is a vacant house. This vacant house appears to be haunted. As Toru's uncle explains all the badluck that happened to those who inhabited that house, we can conclude that there is a supernatural force (like I have mentioned in a previous post) that haunts that house. This element of evil is interesting when we look back at the title of the novel, which suggests that this bird's cry warns us of evil. (Back on raphaela's post "title of the novel"). 

Setting

On the first page of the chapter entitled "What Happened in the Night," Murakami uses longer sentences to describe the sinister, almost unearthly, setting or atmosphere.  Although the structure of the sentences is not much different from the short ones, these two below are much richer in literary devices -- some of which are personification, onomatopoeia, sound, visual imagery, and simile. 

"The evergreen oak looked almost annoyed as it trembled in the occasional puff of the wind with an unpleasant creaking sound.  The stones in the garden looked whiter and smoother than they ordinarily did, staring up at the sky impassively like the faces of dead people" (355). 

The setting here is creepily eerie, like in a nightmare where one observes, unable to move.  The oak is personified as "annoyed," giving it a human trait.  The word "creaking" could be onomatopoeia, standing out in the silence of nighttime.  It is as if wandering through a graveyard, with stones taking the shape of white long gone faces, the smoothness and whiteness reminding one of bones.  They are personified as "staring," having no emotions at all, appearing apathetic.  Then there is not to forget the wind, which brings about nocturnal noises. 

The reader is very much drawn into this setting because it is so vivid and though surreal, weirdly familiar; in the dark anything is possible to take shape.  In addition, I noticed that giving animate objects human traits also stirs ones imagination and endows the scene with a sense of being overpowered by something supernatural (reinforced by the moonlight).  It also foreshadows danger and fright, especially when the boy (young Cinnamon) hears the cry of the wind-up bird. 


Is there a setting that you liked?

A stop on emotions (1st part)

Another important theme that appears a few times in Haruki Murakami’s novel is the one of emotions. Toru mentions that he is able to put a, “freeze on my emotions.” (78) After being introduced several different characters, it is interesting to tell how each person controls his/her emotions. For example, Toru is able to control his emotions, putting them on freeze. On the other hand, Kumiko’s mother seems to have no emotions. Noburu doesn’t seem to understand what emotions are due to the fact that he was so absorbed in his work and studies all the time (for example, he didn’t have “time” for girlfriends). Finally, the father appears to be heartless, and the only thing he does care about is to be the best and beat the rest. 

Analysis of Characters (1st part)

In this sixth chapter, we are introduced (in some detail) to Kumiko’s family. We have, to begin with, her father; Kumiko’s father who is dedicated to always win, in every way possible. In his description (pages 72-73) we are exposed to this obsession he has with competition. In fact, he is described as a man who always wanted, “to earn the highest possible marks and to shove aside anyone and everyone standing in your (his) path to the top.” (72-73) After being introduced to a man like this, we are then exposed to his wife, Kumiko’s mother, who is a symbol of oppression. So much so that she, “possessed neither the opinions nor the character to oppose her husband’s opinion.” (73) Then again, after seeing how her husband was, how could she?

Next, Noboru Wataya is introduced. Noboru, who is the first member of Kumiko’s family being revealed his surname, is an intelligent and devoted man, who found his way right to the top of society. As I mentioned earlier, the author deliberately chose not to mention the names of Kumiko’s: mother, father, and sister, however we are granted her brothers name. Further more, the whole sixth chapters name is (partially) devoted to Noboru, as his name is in fact the chapter’s title. The cat that is also an important symbol holds the same name as Kumiko’s brother. With these details, we can conclude that Noboru will be of greater importance, in relation to the rest of his family. 

Not just a cat (1st part)

Throughout the beginning of this novel, the cat is a prominent detail; however, as the storyline continues, we start thinking that the cat might be more than just an animal. Once we are revealed Kumiko’s childhood, the cat becomes a symbol. One where Kumiko finally has what she wants, so one can assert that this cat is (possibly) a symbol of independence for her. Having the cat is essential for her because it is something that she wants, and since as a child she was neglected and was not allowed to have what she wants, having this cat allows her to feel important. This also allows us readers to understand why Kumiko was so keen on finding this cat, since the beginning of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. 

Kumiko's childhood (1st part)

Kumiko’s childhood: As the novel continues, the narrator opens up and describes his wife’s life as a child. This description makes us feel bad for her. We start feeling pity for her rough childhood with her grandmother. We are then told that Kumiko was "returned" to her parents and siblings, in the, "home where she should have been all along. Her parents were there, her brother and her sister. But it was not her home. It was simply a new environment. " (71) The use of italics on the words: her home, and new environment, is interesting to point out because they make things more awkward. Those two words put together make a sort of contradiction. Home should be an environment that one is used to, not a new and unfamiliar one. The narrator continues talking about the problems that Kumiko endured as a child. He claims that her life could be different now, and believes that so much so that he makes the assertion that, “You have the right to choose your own life.” (72) This is an important aspect to explore. Do we really have the right to choose our own life? One thing is certain, as children, that is not a possibility; our lives are definitely controlled by parents and outside factors. As we grow up, on the other hand, it is possible that we have a bit more choices as to what direction our lives go into. However, I do not know if the term “right” is the correct one to use in this context. Even as an adult, certain adults do not have the “right” to completely control their own lives…it is sure that factors like money and your surroundings contribute to that. It is interesting however that this personage chose (rather that the author chose) to say this exact phrase. With this, as readers, we are beginning to appreciate the narrator more and more. Especially since his character is being revealed, through dialogue with his wife, as a caring one.

This idea of the “right to choose your own life” is quickly juxtaposed when Kumiko father is further introduced and we are shown his opinion. In fact, he believes that, “all men are not created equally.” (73)

Similarities with Jiro Taniguchi's illustrated novel

As I have mentioned in my previous post, Murakami's book reminds me of Taniguchi's illustrated novel Quartier Lointain. The latter evidently includes less text but does contain images that accompany each text box. There is one particular scene in Taniguchi's novel that reminds me of Toru Okada in the well.

The image above represents the moment of transition that Taniguchi's character goes through when he changes from a grown adult to a 14 year old teenager. Although the scene does not explicitly portray this change, the images are laid out in such a way (especially the movement of the butterfly) to show this crucial moment of change. When I was reading the part of Murakami's novel in which Toru is in the well and begins to give deep thought about everything, this specific page of Taniguchi's novel popped up in my mind. To me, Toru experienced some type of change while he remained in that well; the man that went into the hole in the ground is not the same one that emerged from it. His intense and almost painful thought process combined with his aching hunger and thirst, changed the type of person he was. This is much like what happened to Creta Kano with Kumiko's brother. 

Inner Travel

In the second book, Creta Kano finally tells Toru about her relations with Kumiko's brother. At first, I expected it to be a story of a woman raped by a man, but it in reality goes beyond that. Noboru Wataya defiled her in the sense where he not only exploited her body, but her mind as well. On page 306, Creta Kano explains how her relations with Noboru Wataya have allowed her to rediscover her third self. The first version of her was a girl who felt constant intense pain until her failed suicide attempt where she was plunged into an everlasting numbness. Following her strange encounter with Wataya however, she was able to fully manipulate these two previous versions of herself and blend them into one. She says, When pain comes to me, I leave my physical self. It's just like quietly slipping into the next room when someone you don't want to meet comes along." (page 306) I have realized that there are many supernatural aspects in the novel such as Mr.Honda's strange gift or the Kano sister's profession. This side of the novel reminds me of a book that we read in French class by a Japanese manga artist called Jiro Taniguchi; the story is called Quartier Lointain and tells the story of an adult man who strangely goes back in time to his childhood. By the end of the manga, the reader realizes that the time travel (whether it was real or simply a dream) represents an interior voyage of the soul. For some reason, I feel that Toru Okada is experiencing the same things that the main character in Taniguchi's illustrated novel went through.
Throughout the novel, Toru Okada seems to gradually lose his grasp on reality: the disappearance of his cat, his encounter with May and the Kano sisters, followed by Mr.Honda's strange gift, and of course Kumiko's escape with another man. Although he does come to meet many new people such as May Kashara or Lieutenant Mamiya, I feel as though Toru becomes increasingly isolated from the world and begins to focus more on himself. His adventure in the well allowed him to literally escape from the real world and to enclose himself. He could not see or hear anything thus forcing him make his mind more than it usually does; it is without a doubt that if I had chosen to remain in a well for a couple of days, I would be forced to think about everything but in more depth. I feel that Murakami uses Toru Okada's time in the well as a metaphor of the human mind. In his complete state of isolation, the main character was able to dig deep into his conscience, but also through his dreams, he was able to explore his subconscious. Due to the fact that he has absolutely nothing else to do in the well, he is able to question and reevaluate every aspect of his life: his main priority being Kumiko's departure.
At this point in the novel, I have noticed that many aspects of the novel make it appear beyond ordinary. It is as though, Murakami has written this book in such a way that the reader can equally feel the supernatural "vibe" that I feel is instilled in this novel. 

Title of the Novel

The following quote about the wind-up bird suggests that it is rather a menacing omen:

“The cry of this bird was audible only to certain people, who were guided by it toward inescapable ruin” (525). 

It appears that those certain people have the same blue mark on their faces as Toru Okada and Cinnamon have.

What, in your opinion, is the meaning, or clues to the meaning, of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle?"

Feelings & Grisly Images

At the end of the second book, I observed that Murakami has ceased to conceal Toru Okada’s emotions.  In other words, the novelist has unfolded some of the deeper, more suppressed feelings and inner struggles of Toru Okada.  However incomprehensible they may seem, the audience is able to understand that on the inside, this man is much more impacted and disturbed by the disappearance of his cat and his wife than one would have thought possible. 

I think that the stories told by other characters like Lieutenant Mamiya are not only important in terms of contextual information and setting an oftentimes threatening, haunting, and confusing scene, but also help Toru Okada on his unconsciously desperate search for his identity and understanding of the world around him, from which he has almost isolated himself. 

Perhaps the outburst of anger as he smashes the guitarist with the baseball bat at the end of the second book reflects how confused and tormented he is within, and that he is somehow lost and helpless.  I found this quote revealing:

“The man could no longer get to his feet.  But I couldn’t stop.  There were two of me now, I realized.  I had split in two, but this me had lost the power to stop the other me.  An intense chill ran through my body.  Then I realized the man was smiling” (336). 

Toru has come to understand that he is not himself at the moment.  He is a split character; putting the two halves together would require an immense effort.  One of the halves has more reason than the other, we may say, telling him that he has defended himself and ought not to keep smashing the smirking corpse.  The other half, I believe, is an extension of the tumult inside him, where reason is of no importance and where limits are meaningless because crossing them brings no sense of guilt or relief and where one limit overflows into the next. 

Although the sentences are still as short as in the beginning, they have become somewhat more powerful and less superficial.  Patterns also start to emerge.  For instance, the word “realize” appears twice, suggesting that Toru Okada starts to observe himself in a different light than before, becoming aware of both his split identity and the danger of the world around him.  Also, the intense chill followed by the observation that the man is smiling creates an ominous setting and escalates the tension.  To encapsulate, Murakami uses short sentences both to describe the ordinary setting at the beginning and the rather lurking one that is intervened in order to highlight how difficult it is for Toru to distinguish between menace and harmlessness.  I thought that the smile is a symbol of the rather evil forces that come into play and blend reality and imagination together.

The confusion and sense of being lost between two worlds haunts Toru.  Perhaps he feels that he cannot escape whatever haunts him.  Especially the atrocities of war told by the Lieutenant have a firm grip on him as he finds out more about his culture.  As Alia mentioned before, the skinning of Yamamoto is a gruesome picture of violence.  The following quote emphasizes the conflict within Toru as he attempts to comprehend the ghastliness of what human beings are capable of doing to one another:

“… but my legs wouldn’t move.  The skin reached my feet and began to crawl upward.  It crept over my own skin clinging to mine as an overlay.  The heavy smell of blood was everywhere.  Soon, my legs, my body, my face, were entirely covered by the thin membrane of the man’s skin.  Then my eyes could no longer see, and the man’s laughter reverberated in the hollow darkness” (338). 

Like in the deep well later in the book when the water rises, or when the person in the dark room stabs at him with a knife, Toru is paralyzed, unable to move.  There is a deep sense of helplessness, creating pathos, as he cannot move, especially in the face of inevitable danger.  The image of the crawling skin is so vividly painted in the reader’s mind and underlines the horridness of Toru’s nightmare of the guitarist skinning himself.  His helplessness is intensified by his inability to see and the overpowering laughter creeping into the darkness under the man’s skin and over Toru’s. 

I believe that being tormented by dreadful images and confusing feelings, Toru finds out more about his culture and his suppressed self and is able to realize that he wants Kumiko back in his life.  He senses that she is in the grip of another world, yet he is determined not to let her vanish from his world. 

What is the importance of the baseball bat?  

Cats and Noburu Wataya

I have three cats at home, Zelda, Ziggy & Assad, and they all know their names and (usually) come when called. (Above are Ziggy - on the left - and Assad). Like Murakami, I really like cats, and suspect they are very wise as well as independent. Jean Cocteau said that a cat is "the visible soul of the house" - and perhaps this explains why Toru and Kumiko's cat mysteriously disappeared - the house had lost its soul. I found this tribute to someone's special cat on another blog (gingerblue.com):

"She kept me company through many lonely nights in graduate school. She’s sat in many windows, peering out into the darkness waiting for me (now, for all of us) to come home. She quietly moves through the house with her tail up and her nose sniffing. If she gets antsy, she’ll yowl. But not often. She greets us all every morning with drawn-out blinks of her beautiful copper eyes and a quiet calm, unlike the other two cats, who yowl and howl and demand breakfast."

 When Toru's cat comes back after a year away it is a wonderful piece about the consolation the cat gives him after his months of isolation and loneliness. Here's just an extract:

"Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat's chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.” (378)

This connection between Toru and his cat, as between any human being and an animal, strikes me as quite miraculous. Without speech there is a bond, sometimes stronger and deeper than between human beings because maybe language gets in the way.

So, Toru's cat is given a new name, Mackerel, and the old association with the horrid brother-in-law is over. Kumiko's brother's character seems to epitomize the fake sincerity of a lot of tv people, especially politicians. He is a 'hollow man' and an evil presence in the novel, the antagonist in effect. In the long section about Noboru Wataya there was a comment about him (and similar people) that I really liked:

"It seems to me that certain patterns of thought are so simple and one-sided that they become irresistible" (74)

This is what makes NW so massively popular in the media, I think. Toru implies this habit of thinking came from NW's mother who:

" ...whenever an occasion arose in which she needed an opinion on something in the wider world, she borrowed her husband's. If this had been all there was to her, she wouldn't have bothered anyone, but as is so often the case with such women, she suffered from an incurable case of pretentiousness. Lacking any internalized values of her own, such people can arrive at a standpoint only by adopting other people's standards or views. The only principle that governs their minds is the question 'How do I look?' . . . Anything that failed to enter her narrow field of vision ceased to have meaning for her." (75)

I have met quite a lot of people like this - who because they are too lazy to find out for themselves either steal/borrow other people's opinions - or just lift opinions from others that fit their prejudices or their place in society. One wonders if such people really know how to think at all. However, this is a little different than what NW does (1st quote) where Murakami is highlighting how easy it is to adopt one-sided simple opinions on issues. In fact, as Oscar Wilde said, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

Intriguing Quote: Book 1 page 128

I was away from internet for quite a while and so as I was reading the novel I was not able to immediately publish posts as soon as I stumbled upon interesting passages. I did however make note of a particular quote in the first book which I found to be extremely intriguing. In this part of the novel, Toru Okada has recently found Kumiko's new Christian Dior eau de cologne and finds himself extremely puzzled. He does not understand who could have possibly given her such a gift. What is interesting in all of this is that a simple bottle of perfume detains a vast range of possible stories. Since he does not know the truth, this small bottle begins to haunt him. Instead of being a mere beauty product, his mind transforms it into a barrier between Kumiko and him. With all of this in mind, Toru says, "Now, however, it had taken on the thin veil of secrecy." (Page 128) The most interesting part of this quote is the fact that he compares secrecy to a thin veil. When I think of the concept of secrecy, the first image that comes to mind is a large wall or a barrier because to me, it represents the unknown and the unattainable. Toru Okada however, compares it to a subtle and discrete object that is extremely mobile and simple to touch. He introduces another facet of secrecy; by referring to it as a thin veil, he makes it all the more dangerous. By alluding to a thin veil, Toru Okada emphasizes the fact that it is very easy to fall into a world of secrecy (one suspicious object can create barriers between two people). At this point, he begins to suspect Kumiko and starts to scrutinize every one of her actions. The discovery of the bottle of perfume has caused him to "touch" the veil of secrecy and to overanalyze any situation concerning his wife. 

May Kasahara and Death

There was a certain theme in the last few scenes of Book Two which caught my attention, although it really only involved May Kasahara speaking about death. When Toru was down in the well and she found him, she told him, "You might die down there, depending on my mood. I'm the only one who knows you're in there, and I'm the one who hid the rope ladder... If I just walked away from here, you'd end up dead..." (p.254) When Toru (and the reader) realizes this, he doesn't seem too concerned, because he doesn't really believe May would do something like that, although she is right, and his life depends on her. She seems so enthusiastic about the fact that it is so easy for her to leave him there to die, and this seems weird. How she feels about having a life depend on her. Then Murakami changes the tone of the scene and May becomes a scarier character; "I'm not talking about possibility," she said in the coldest tone imaginable. "Hey, I've got an idea... You went to all this trouble of climbing down there so you could think. Why don't I fix it so you can concentrate on your thoughts even better?" (p.255) And then she closes the cover of the well completely. This ends the chapter on the eeriest note possible, because she'd just been talking about leaving Toru there to die, and closing the well completely makes her words become more believable.

But May seems to be very interested in death. She researches about how long it would take for someone to die of hunger or thirst, and predicts how long Toru has to live if she leaves him there. There's a quote that she says that I really liked, because I'd never thought about it before, "If people lived forever - if they never got any older - if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy - do you think they'd bother to think hard about things, the way we're doing now? I mean, we think about just about everything, more or less... I kinda think, if there were no such thing as death, that complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world." (p.258) It's a very interesting idea, especially because I agree; if we were immortal, we would probably never think about such complicated things, because we wouldn't care, we wouldn't have to. As May says later on, "Or even if they should bother, they'd probably just figure, 'Oh well, I've got plenty of time for that. I'll think about it later.' But we can't wait until later." (p.258) These are Murakami's ideas transmitted through May's character, and they impact the reader, especially because death is a prominent idea in the book right now, since Toru is trapped in a well with no food and little water. 

Murakami Quotes

Akshay got me going on Murakami quotes... Here's a link with quotes from different novels, selected by his many enthusiastic readers...

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3354.Haruki_Murakami

The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami (New York Times)

Interesting and entertaining New York Times article about Murakami as representative of Japanese culture (or rather, not...) Details, also, of his latest magnum opus 1Q84 and rumours of a nobel prize... Thankyou, Ms. Cox for sharing this!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/the-fierce-imagination-of-haruki-murakami.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

I have two quotes from the article that might help shed light on the writer:

"The signature pleasure of a Murakami plot is watching a very ordinary situation (riding an elevator, boiling spaghetti, ironing a shirt) turn suddenly extraordinary (a mysterious phone call, a trip down a magical well, a conversation with a Sheep Man) — watching a character, in other words, being dropped from a position of existential fluency into something completely foreign and then being forced to mediate, awkwardly, between those two realities. A Murakami character is always, in a sense, translating between radically different worlds: mundane and bizarre, natural and supernatural, country and city, male and female, overground and underground. His entire oeuvre, in other words, is the act of translation dramatized."

"He is notoriously obsessed with metaphors of depth: characters climbing down empty wells to enter secret worlds or encountering dark creatures underneath Tokyo’s subway tunnels. (He once told an interviewer that he had to stop himself from using well imagery, after his eighth novel, because the frequency of it was starting to embarrass him.) He imagines his own creativity in terms of depth as well. Every morning at his desk, during his trance of total focus, Murakami becomes a Murakami character: an ordinary man who spelunks the caverns of his creative unconscious and faithfully reports what he finds.
    'I live in Tokyo,' he told me, 'a kind of civilized world — like New York or Los Angeles or London or Paris. If you want to find a magical situation, magical things, you have to go deep inside yourself. So that is what I do. People say it’s magic realism — but in the depths of my soul, it’s just realism. Not magical. While I’m writing, it’s very natural, very logical, very realistic and reasonable.'”