Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

Matthew Chozick (University of Birmingham)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.2.2: Japanese Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Mats Arne Karlsson (University of Sydney), Roy Anthony Starrs (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1994

Places

Japan (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is both historical fiction and an exploration of loss in modern Tokyo. Two primary storylines — a macronarrative in the present, which forms the bulk of the novel, and a micronarrative in pre-Second World War Japan — alternate and intertwine. The present day narrative is an opus of disappearance, of accumulating absence, and of psychological discontinuity. The book begins the loss of the protagonist's cat, his job, and his wife. Yet esoterically, for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle's main character, Toru, all three disappearances are tied to Japan's former occupation of China. Thus, a rigorous search for Toru's cat, wife, and a job, do not require a gumshoe's investigation of clues and …

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1507 words

Citation: Chozick, Matthew. "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2007; last revised 15 November 2007. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12512, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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