The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
First US edition cover
Author(s)	Haruki Murakami
Original title	ねじまき鳥クロニクル Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru'
Translator	Jay Rubin
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Shinchosha (Japanese) Vintage (US)
Publication date	1994-5
Published in English	1997
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	607
ISBN	0-679-77543-9
OCLC Number	39915729

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (ねじまき鳥クロニクル, Nejimaki-dori Kuronikuru^?) is a novel by Haruki Murakami. The first published translation was by Alfred Birnbaum. The American translation and its British adaptation, dubbed the "only official translations" (English) are by Jay Rubin and were first published in 1997. For this novel, Murakami received the Yomiuri Literary Award, which was awarded to him by one of his harshest former critics, Oe Kenzaburo.

Publication history

The original Japanese edition was released in three parts, which make up the three "books" of the single volume English language version.

1. Dorobō kasasagi hen (泥棒かささぎ編^?)
2. Yogen suru tori hen (予言する鳥編^?)
3. Torisashi otoko hen (鳥刺し男編^?)

In English translation, two chapters were originally published in The New Yorker under the titles "The Zoo Attack" on July 31, 1995, and "Another Way to Die" on January 20, 1997. A slightly different version of the first chapter translated by Alfred Birnbaum was published in the collection The Elephant Vanishes under the title "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women". In addition, the character name Noboru Wataya appears in the short story "Family Affair" in The Elephant Vanishes. While having a similar personality and background, the character is not related to the one in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle of the same name. Noboru Wataya is also used in Jay Rubin's translation of the title short story in The Elephant Vanishes.

In May 2010, Harvill Secker published the Limited Centenary Edition of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to celebrate its one hundred years of publishing. It was limited to 2,500 copies. ^[1]

Plot summary

The novel is about a low-key unemployed man, Toru Okada, whose cat runs away. A chain of events follow that prove that his seemingly mundane boring life is much more complicated than it appears.

Main characters

While this book has many major and minor characters, these are among the most important:

• Toru Okada: The narrator and protagonist, Toru is a passive and often apathetic young man living in suburban Japan. He is Kumiko's husband and continually follows the orders or wishes of others. Currently unemployed, he is the embodiment of passivity.
• Kumiko Okada: Kumiko is Toru's wife and, as the breadwinner of the couple, is the more autonomous of the two. She works in the publishing business.
• Noboru Wataya: Noboru is Kumiko's brother. He is presented as a mediagenic figure; the public loves him, but Toru cannot stand him. Noboru appears as an academic in the beginning, becomes a politician in the story, and has no apparent personal life. He is said to be hidden behind a façade — all style, and no substance. ("Noboru Wataya" is also the name Toru and Kumiko gave to their pet cat, whom Toru later renames Mackerel, like the fish; the character name also appeared in Family Affair, translated by Jay Rubin, of The Elephant Vanishes collection.)
• May Kasahara: May is a middleteen girl who should be in school, but, by choice, is not. Toru and May carry on a fairly constant exchange throughout a good deal of the novel; when May is not present, she writes to him (though the reader can peruse them, her letters never reach him). Their conversations in person are often bizarre and revolve around death and the deterioration of human life. Even more bizarre is the cheerful and decidedly non-serious air with which these conversations take place.
• Lieutenant Mamiya: Mamiya was an officer during the Japanese military efforts in Manchukuo, and meets Toru while carrying out the particulars of Mr. Honda's will. He has been emotionally scarred by witnessing the flaying of a superior officer and several nights spent in a dried-up well. He tells Toru his story both in person and in letters.
• Malta Kano: Malta Kano is a medium of sorts who changed her name to "Malta" after performing some kind of "austerities" on the island of Malta for some time. She is enlisted by Kumiko to help the Okadas find their missing cat.
• Creta Kano: Malta's younger sister and apprentice of sorts, she describes herself as a "prostitute of the mind." Disturbingly, for Toru, Creta has a nearly identical face and figure to Kumiko.
• Nutmeg Akasaka: Nutmeg first meets Toru as he sits on a bench watching people's faces every day in Shinjuku. The second time they meet she is attracted to the blue-black mark on his right cheek. She and Toru share a few strange coincidences: the wind-up bird in Toru's yard and the blue-black cheek mark appear in Nutmeg's World War II-related stories, and also Nutmeg's father and Lieutenant Mamiya (an acquaintance of Toru's) are linked by World War II. "Nutmeg Akasaka" is a pseudonym she chose for herself after insisting to Toru that her "real" name is irrelevant. Her real name is never mentioned in the novel.
• Cinnamon Akasaka: Cinnamon is Nutmeg's adult son who hasn't spoken since age 6. He communicates through a system of hand movements and mouthed words. Somehow, people who've just met him (who presumably have never lipread or used sign language) find him perfectly comprehensible. "Cinnamon," too, is a pseudonym created by Nutmeg.

Missing chapters

Two chapters from the second volume of the original three-volume Japanese paperback edition were not included in the English translation. In addition, one of the chapters near the excluded two was moved ahead of another chapter, taking it out of the context of the original order.^[2]

The two missing chapters elaborate on the relationship between Toru Okada and Creta Kano, and a "hearing" of the wind-up bird as Toru burns a box of Kumiko's belongings.

Translation

The English translation of the novel was carried out by Jay Rubin.

It must also be noted that in addition to very notable differences between the Japanese and English versions, there are also differences between the original Japanese hardcover and paperback editions.^[2]

Further differences exist between the American and British editions, but these are much more superficial.^[2]

The German translation by Giovanni and Ditte Bandini is based on the English translation, not on the Japanese original.^[3]

There is also an Italian translation from the original Japanese version by Antonietta Pastore, published by Einaudi, known as "L'uccello che girava le viti del mondo".

The Swedish edition, "Fågeln som vrider upp världen", was translated from the Japanese original by Eiko and Yukiko Duke and published in 2007.

Book information

• Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. translated by Jay Rubin. ISBN 0-679-77543-9. 
• Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. translated by Jay Rubin. ISBN 1-86046-581-1. 

Notes

1. ^ http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/catalog/book.htm?command=search&db=main.txt&eqisbndata=1846553873
2. ^ ^{a b c} Translating Murakami, an email roundtable, with Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel (translators of Murakami), and Gary Fisketjon (Murakami's editor at Knopf).
3. ^ Haruki Murakami, Mister Aufziehvogel, Cologne 1998, p. 3

External links

• East Meets West, the New York Times Book Review
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Literary Encyclopedia
• Exorcising Ghosts Page with plenty of links to reviews
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, reviewed by Ted Gioia (The New Canon)
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Multimedia Theatre Production Stephen Earnhart's multimedia adaptation of Murakami's novel