The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami

You open your eyes, but no light enters. Without sight, your complimentary senses work tirelessly, trying to make sense of the situation. Smell: it’s damp, not quite moldy. You hear nothing but your own heartbeat and the sound your feet shuffling on a rocky ground. You feel around and realize there are not four walls, but rather you must be in a small, circular room. You trace the smooth brick walls with both of your hands. You feel the dampness creep onto your skin until your hand grasps something solid. You jump back. “Hello? Is anyone in here?” With no response, you reach forward once again and your hand grasps that solid object. It’s wooden; it has a long, skinny handle. You pick it up and realize the object is a baseball bat. Where the hell am I?

This is what you would feel if you found yourself in the middle of protagonist, Toru Okada’s daily activities. Toru Okada, the main character in Haruki Murakami’s, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, is a middle aged man living in Japan with his wife. Going through some-what of a quarter life crisis, Toru quits his job at a law firm with the intention to take some time to search for what he is passionate about, when all of a sudden his small world comes crashing down. Toru soon realizes… his wife’s cat is missing. After days go by, and the cat has not returned, his wife too goes missing. Cue the dreamlike sensation; nothing from this point on is normal.

I use the word “dreamlike” because throughout this book, we slip into Toru’s narration of his daily life, along with real events in a far off fantasy world. This fantasy world is only accessible through Toru’s utter suppression of the outside world. Hence the description above, this state of mind is best observed 100 feet below ground at the bottom of a dried up well. Throughout the book, Toru spends days inside the well as he reflects on his life before his wife, and what his true purpose is in life as an individual. Along the way, we are introduced to mysterious characters that have a seemingly sixth sense, we meet an old war veteran whose final gift to Toru is an empty box, and we get to see a man completely unstuck in society, trying to find an identity.

I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at a perfect time in my life. In my first semester of my senior year of college, I had a full time post grad job offer, was taking way too many unrelated credit hours, and felt extremely anxious to move on to the next chapter in my life. I felt as though I was in limbo, simply floating through the days. I was moving towards an unknown arbitrary date on a calendar that told me “ok, now you get to do what you want.” By nature, I am ambitious; I take life head on and keep my mind running at 1000 mph. That’s who I am. I’ve never known another way.

Haruki Murakami bases his book in Japanese ebb and flow ideology. A concept previously foreign to me, I learned a valuable lesson. I learned that when one must wait, one must wait. We cannot swim against the tide of life, imposing our own will upon the world. This last semester was a time of waiting. While this revelation did not make each passing day any easier, I was able to shed the anxiety, the stress, and truly feel what it means to be at a weird moment in my life. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is exactly for that type of person: one who is not at a crossroad in life; but rather, a dead end, just waiting for someday a road to appear. And that road does eventually appear. Months later, I write this reflection, and the energy and flow is back into my life. However, in the meantime, I embraced wholeheartedly the concept of Murakami’s well. Never in my life had I craved a complete sensory shutdown.

As I go through this second coming of age point in my life, I have identified three key lessons to which I will need to learn in order to succeed. Throughout these past four years, I have learned the importance of being alone. I understand the value of dedicated time to just be by myself. Now, I know how to wait. I know how to live in the ebb and flow and when I must wait, I will do just that. Finally, as I enter this next stage of my life, I am learning to meet the right people to help me conquer the world once the waiting is over. I will leave you with this final thought: Toru Okada received an empty box. Boxes are meant to be filled. Lives are meant to be lived.

Favorite Quotes

• Everybody in the whole damned world is so damned serious.

• Pain was not something that was dealt out fairly.

• Like the ebb and flow of the tides. No one can do anything to change them. When it is time to wait, you must wait.

• The ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the finest qualities a person can possess.

• You ought to train yourself to look at things with your own eyes until something comes clear.

• Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.