Wind-up confusion

I am boggled up after winding up reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle of Vintage Murakami. I thought his name is Haruki but I will leave it up to him if he wants to be called in his another name, Vintage. But I am a bit bothered that people might not recognize the writer so I will call him Haruki Vintage Murakami instead based on the book cover.

It must be the effect of Mr. Murakami’s book that made me think this way.  Anyway,

I was checking out the newly renovated library where I teach and chanced upon “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” lying there on a table waiting to ambush a curious reader that happened to be me. I checked on the blurb at the back and thought of the possibility of holding a Murakami while riding the train and people seeing me reading it intensely making me look like a genius thus raising the bar of my image to people who I will not meet again for the rest of my life.

So much for self-image, I borrowed the book and immediately got into the groove enjoying the first few chapters dreamily imagining Japan and the apparent gentle ways of people living their lives. The author generated that serene and mindful atmosphere in the house while not negating the underlying conflicts between the married couple that progressed to a mind boggling end. It greatly reminded me of the film “Lost in Translation” with its subtly quiet way of sending messages to the viewers.

The main character, Toru Okada, is a thirty something law graduate waiting to take the bar or something and unemployed giving me the impression that he is a slacker that keeps the house in order while his wife, Kumiko, works as an ad executive.

The story started with their cat missing and ended with his wife, his brother-in-law, some of his friends, and my sanity missing. The story was a rollercoaster ride for me that crossed between the realms of imagination turning into reality, and reality becoming the imagination of the main character.

Kumiko left him due to her admitted adulterous ways that left Toru more baffled than angry. He then met May Kasahara, his chain smoking, beer drinking teenage neighbor who related well with him in his struggles with his life and attempt to win back Kumiko. It was May Kasahara who I think made Toru Okada survive his ordeals in dealing with the problems in his head, or life, or heart through her presence in his life. 

Kumiko's brother, Noboru Wataya, is a polemicist (somebody who blabbers non-sense a lot but people listen and thinks he is a genius) and a professor who is also a hotshot public figure but has something evil lurking in his heart. The word defilement comes up again and again in the book as he defiled his sisters making the girls' life miserable. One committed suicide while Kumiko, as the story hinted, became a nymphomaniac. He also defiled a character named Creta Kano that made her  turn into a prostitute seeking revenge. Noboru Wataya was killed by Kumiko in the end as a revenge for her defilement that turned her life into bollocks.

While I can somewhat connect the stories on what is transpiring in the life of the main character, there also seems to be a disconnection somewhere when it starts telling stories of Toru Okada meeting up some characters in another world, with all its, I do not want to call it magic, but queerness in the events and situations, then meeting these characters again in the ‘normal’ world. I do not want to dichotomize the character’s thoughts because it is supposed to be his chronicle but I got confused trying to tie-up segments of the book. The book, divided in three parts, is a series of stories, or a chronicle, that should be connected logically to reach a logical end, but got me more confused.I guess trying too hard to connect the stories ended with my disconnection.

I have too much supposition as I read the book that, in the end, defeated the purpose of fully enjoying the creativity and genius and the beauty of Haruki Vintage Murakami's prose. I was windang (Filipino word for confused) as the wind-up bird as I closed the last page of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle.