Haruki Murakami The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Impressions

I finally read a modern-day classic and can share a few thoughts on it. First of all, it seems like the book illustrates a kind of modern mood. The mood is one of detachment and involvement in life. The main character, Toru, is connected to two characters through the stories they tell in the novel. Both of these characters are from the Japanese war and both of them illustrate well the modern preoccupation with freewill vs human predetermination. The war is a powerful means of illustrating human punniness. 

There is also plenty of symbolism in the book. It's difficult to quite nail down the symbolism of the Windup Bird; it is certainly an image of mechanism and absurdity. Yet it also seems to express some kind of beauty. The windup bird is an important part of one of the war stories. It plays a role in connecting the war stories to Toru's life, suggesting to us that the same kind of determinism(lack of free will) exists in Toru's world.

At the same time, the author gives us the image of the thieving magpie which seems to come in parts of the book which are mysterious and out of the ordinary like when the seductive woman beckons or when Toru is trapped in another dimension inside the well. Just maybe the author is playing with two perspectives on reality--one in which reality is mechanized and the other in which mischievous forces are dictating our fate. For what it is worth, the opera from which the Thieving Magpie Overture comes is about a maid who is on the point of being hung for stealing silver which in fact the magpie stole. The thieving magpie might be closer to a representation of human freewill but like the windup bird, it can't be controlled.

Let's go back to the theme of involvement and detachment. Toru and Kumiku are illustrative of the modern mood which is obviously involved in the whole question of human destiny. Toru's response seems to be a sort of easy-going attitude to what life has to throw at him. He is a strange cross between the narrator and the protagonist. Kumiko seems to be the opposite in many ways since she allows herself to become deeply involved physically in the lives of others. Yet, in reality, this seems to only make her more abstracted from real life. At the beginning of the book, she has ceased to be a real presence in the author's life. Even when they first meet and sleep together, Toru feels no connection to Kumiku. 

These are just some impressions I had of this interesting but very dark and modern book. I hope they are useful.