Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

Matthew Chozick (University of Birmingham)
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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 evidence; instead, Toru must delve into unexamined levels of his, and the…

1507 words

Citation: Chozick, Matthew. "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2007; last revised 15 November 2007. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12512, accessed 19 March 2024.]

12512 The Wind-up Bird Chronicle 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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