#the wind up bird chronicle

[metamorphesque]

Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside.

― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

#quotes #literature #haruki murakami #the wind up bird chronicle #japanese literature

[quotespile]

But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.

Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

#literature #quotes #Haruki Murakami #The Wind Up Bird Chronicle #quote #books #lit

[therealdostoevsky]

Murakami's characters are often lost souls searching for meaning in a world that doesn't make sense. It's like he took the phrase "mid-life crisis" and turned it into an entire literary genre.

#bookblr #litblr #dark academia #dark academia books #books #books and literature #classic lit #classic literature #lit #murakami is a god #murakami #haruki murakami #norwegian wood #kafka on the shore #the wind up bird chronicle #sputnik sweetheart #after the quake #dance dance dance

[sundaysays]

"You're not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you have to do is choose a life in which you have a cat. It's simple. It's your right."

— The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Murakami, 1994)

#haruki murakami #cats aesthetic #cat #the wind up bird chronicle #drawing

[alien-ally]

You know the weird thing about Murakami's books is that the woman characters are only the ones that can actually be trusted. they're all very eccentric and know things and give you good advice and can be relied upon to seek help when the male protagonist is in unimaginable unfathomable unspeakable ordeals. Malta Kano, May Kasahara, Nutmeg, Sakura, the narrator's girlfriend (wild sheep chase) are examples to name a few. And yet. It seems the moment a female character is introduced, you can expect a sexual encounter at every corner. It's like it's only waiting to happen. In all the three books I've read (the fourth one was a collection of short stories). you can feel it coming from the first time they meet the male protagonist and their appearance is described, if you've read like one book of his then certainly. you sense it in the way their body is described, to depict some kind of weird idk sexual appeal? not sure if I'm wording it correctly. but you know it coming from how the description has less to do with their personhood and rather something more... always gives you a bad feeling about the protagonist. also, 'the male gaze'.

#reading his books this cannot be kept aside #but his writing #the way they weave in and out #that's a different topic #so yeah #a wild sheep chase #the elephant vanishes #kafka on the shore #tagging only the books I've read #haruki murakami #aa mine #the wind up bird chronicle #bobblehead

[etherealacademia]

After reading your thoughts on hemingway; I want to know what you feel about murakami

(different anon)

i have some qualms with him.

my first issue is that, after you read a few of his books, you realize that the male narrators/main characters are all like... the same person. they feel so similar, and it’s just repetitive.

second of all, it’s a shame that he’s so weird about women because some of his plots are really interesting, and i find his writing style to be skillful. sputnik sweetheart, for example, had a fascinating premise, but the narrator’s sexual fantasies were completely jarring/out of place and degraded the quality of the text.

#asks #haruki murakami #ive read: #a wild sheep chase #dance dance dance #the strange library #sputnik sweetheart #norwegian wood #the wind up bird chronicle

[litsnaps]

#literature #quotes #Haruki Murakami #The Wind Up Bird Chronicle #quote #lit #books #words

[rokurookajima]

may kasahara 🌀✨

#haruki murakami #the wind up bird chronicle #procreate #digital art #mine #syd art

[k03mbi]

The fragrance of the breeze, the tone of the light, the tiny flowers in the grass, the subtle reverberations that accompanied sounds: all these told me that autumn had come again, increasing the distance between me and the dead with each cycle of the seasons.

Kizuki was still 17 and Naoko 21: forever

- Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

#haruki murakami #norwegian wood #haruki murakami novels #after dark #sputnik sweetheart #kafka on the shore #1q84 #men without women #the wind up bird chronicle #killing commendatore #first person singular #hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world #a wild sheep chase #dance dance dance #south of the border #blind willow sleeping woman #the city and his uncertain walls #the elephant vanishes #birthday girl #after the quake #pinball #the strange library #Spotify

[dark-sage-bloom]

"All these inexplicable events that have occurred in my life so far-- it's as though they were all ingeniously programmed from the start for the very purpose of bringing me here, where I am today. It's a thought I can't seem to shake off. I feel as if my every move is being controlled by some kind of incredibly long arm that's reaching out from somewhere far away, and that my life has been nothing more than a convenient passageway for all these things moving through it" - Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

#haruki murakami #the wind up bird chronicle #book quotes #quotes #literature

[bunnyinatree]

How I feel trying to figure out what on earth is going on with Ushikawa:

[image ID: the conspiracy theorist meme from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where the actor is wide-eyed and frazzled in front of a board covered in papers and red string. End image ID.]

I recognized him immediately from another Murakami novel; I believe it was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but now I'm starting to doubt myself. And I did some mental math, to reassure myself that even though TWUBC was written before 1Q84, it still takes place afterwards (presumably in the 1990s, when it was written). So I thought, "Okay, Ushikawa will be fine, because he has to live past 1984 to make his appearance in Murakami's other book."

But he is definitely dead by the novel's end, so is the answer that he died in the year 1Q84 but not 1984? And because TWUBC takes places on an Earth with only moon, Ushikawa is still alive and kicking, sort of like how Aomame theorizes that Ayumi might still be alive in a different universe?

#i was so surprised when ushikawa got his own pov chapters in part 3 #you could argue how much those sections actually add to the story but i enjoyed the payoff at the end #where you realize that ushikawa parallels the goat in air chrysalis #and if he parallels the goat then... well i thought that leader paralleled the goat in the sense that they were both on the verge of death #regardless of how well they were cared for #but the same might be true of ushikawa because he mentions not taking good care of his physical health #because you never know what might happen and he doesn't exactly seem to plan for getting old #but hmm. much to ponder #i like ushikawa as a character especially because i think it's funny that when someone likes him ushikawa himself is like: uh oh a red flag #bunny babbles #haruki murakami #1Q84 #the wind up bird chronicle

[metamorphesque]

― favorite words of ... haruki murakami (part 1)

A Wild Sheep Chase / Sputnik Sweetheart / After the Quake / The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / Norwegian Wood / Sputnik Sweetheart / The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / South of the Border, West of the Sun / Kafka on the Shore / Norwegian Wood / 1Q84 / Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman / South of the Border, West of the Sun / Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

˗ˏˋin case you’d like to buy me a☕ˎˊ˗  

#this is a new segment i'm thinking of doing #favorite words of #haruki murakami #quotes #literature #translated literature #parallels #japanese literature #a wild sheep chase #sputnik sweetheart #1q84 #after the quake #the wind up bird chronicle #norwegian wood #south of the border west of the sun #kafka on the shore #blind willow sleeping woman #murakami #dark academia #chaotic academia

[eggtartbaby]

“Curiosity can bring guts out of hiding at times, maybe even get them going. But curiosity usually evaporates. Guts have to go for the long haul. Curiosity’s like a fun friend you can’t really trust. It turns you on and then it leaves you to make it on your own—with whatever guts you can muster.”

– Toru Okada, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

#murakami #the wind up bird chronicle #quote #books

[enigmatic-images]

Reading Murakami

#haruki murakami #books and reading #the wind up bird chronicle #daily qoute

[kierrasreads]

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami Review

Plot

In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.

Discussion

This book was...interesting. I was confused throughout most of it, but I was also intrigued so I kept reading. Murakami sensei is an excellent writer, but there were loose ends that definitely didn't get tied up. I did read somewhere that some chapters were cut, so maybe that contributed to the confusion.

Noboru Wataya is an absolutely despicable character and I couldn't help but wish that his beating at the hands of Toru was canon- it's the least that Noboru deserves for all of the horrible trauma and abuse he did to his sisters.

I almost threw up when I read about Boris's...skinning people alive kink.

There are some content warnings, please let me know if I missed any:

Torture/violence (all kinds)/gore

Murder

War

Abortion

S.A.

Body horror

Infidelity

Pedophilia

Sexual content

Despite all of these negative things, it's an excellent story about change (think "you weren't the person you were in high school" kind of thing). The cat that went missing did come back, so that was a happy bonus :). If that cat died...I probably would've rioted.

If I had to pick an age limit, I would definitely say you need to be at least 18 to read this book. Read with caution.

Rating

3.5/5

#bookblr #kierra's reads #the wind up bird chronicle #haruki murakami

[abel660660]

“And in the movement of the sun, I felt something I hardly know how to name: some huge, cosmic love.”

- Haruki Murakami in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

#haruki murakami #quote #the wind up bird chronicle