I finished up Haruki Murakami’s ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ the other day, and I felt like someone had snapped me out of a hypnotic trance. (Of course, that could have been the effects of the compound hangovers I was suffering.)
Murakami’s style is dreamy, riveting, and occasionally exasperating. For a book in which almost nothing happens (and at almost 700 pages, that is a lot of nothing), it is astonishingly hard to put it down. My favorite aspect of his writing is that you can’t tell what is fantasy and what is reality, and you quickly find yourself not caring, as this is obviously not of any real consequence to the characters involved.
All of this contributes to the feeling that you not really reading the book, but that you are instead meandering through a very lucid daydream. This is an impressive feat, given that the English version was actually a translation from the Japanese.
After turning the last page, I had the feeling that I had subconsciously learned some subtle lesson that I couldn’t specify in words. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that was simultaneously so raw and yet so … delicate, like cotton candy made from gossamer cowflesh.
If you have the patience for this sort of thing (e.g. You can read Nabokov for enjoyment), I’d strongly recommend it.
P.S. this is the first blogpost I’ve ever written from a smartphone. Big ups.
P.P.S. I’ve previously read ‘After Dark’ by Murakami as well, a good long time ago. I remember really enjoying that as well.
P.P.P.S.: This is one of the first books I’ve read where I had a hard time finding plot synopses / discussions online. Now I’m stuck using my own brain to interpret the significance of major plot events, which kinda sucks.