Junctions to be Aware of

There are a couple of intersections that we shouldn’t fail to notice in the book as they not only manifests Murakami’s intelligent schemes but also assists us in connecting the book into one full story. Half through dreams, and half through stumbling around, Okada is putting together pieces of his puzzle. However, he needs to bracket himself from the everyday flow of the modern world. The method by which he chooses to do this is by descending into the dry well of the yard in his neighborhood. There, he faces the historic flow of events, both individual and collective. One interesting piece of information is that getting deeper in history seems to have been professed to Mr. Toru Okada by Mr. Honda, the psychic friend of his wife’s family. Fascinatingly Mr. Honda had arranged a contact between Okada and Lt. Mamiya by having Lt. Mamiya deliver to Okada Honda’s keepsake, which turned out to be empty. Be that as it may, meeting Lt. Mamiya seems to be even more useful than an object owing to the fact that Lt. Mamiya has also spent some time in a different well on the Mongolian front as well as in a Soviet prison camp. Then there are stories of Malta and Creta Kano whose story parallels, then intersects, Kumiko’s as well as her sister’s. As you have read, we learn that like Creta, Kumiko’s sister was defiled by her brother Noboru Wataya and later committed suicide. Noboru Wataya himself is connected to World War II Japan through his profession (politics) and a position in a parliament inherited from his uncle. Keeping that in mind, Nutmeg tells Toru about the terrible event of the zoo killing during the Manchurian War and the role of her father in it, who captivatingly is in many ways similar to Okada. The most superficial yet obvious similarity is that they both bear dark marks on their cheeks. More importantly, such a mark seems associated with healing powers. For this reason he’s recognized and treated very appropriately by Nutmeg (she needs these powers as she’s getting tired). Healing becomes Okada’s new job. The story holds an enthralling story line in which Murakami ingeniously uses foreshadowing to trigger our senses and attempt to predict and make connections between the various characters of the book. His writing style is different for each of the characters and when he speaks of the ‘boy’ who sees these men digging a whole and placing a canvas inside we feel like we’re in Toru’s mind as the narrator is not the same it comes from the author himself rather than Toru’s observations through which we receive the story. 

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").