LoT Book CLub - Book 2 - Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Spoiler:

I was a bit disappointed in not having a face-to-face with Noboru Wataya at the end. Giving him a stroke from afar was anti-climactic.

Spoiler:

I'm still in the re-read, but doean't that happen when he's in the well?

Seeing the Last Wave again last night is making me think more about real time versus dream time. In this story (as many others) there seems to always be this movement between the two parallel worlds.

I'm in the 300's now - so about half way through so go ahead and pick it up Steph - either you'll get sucked into the groove with us here - or you'll find it tiresome and can abandon when the discussion dies down.

[katiesue]

I'm still working on it but I have found that it's taking me much longer to read than usual. I don't know if it's the style or what. I read very quickly usually and it seems that it's just taking me longer per page than other books. Perhaps because there's a lot going on and I need to pay more attention?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by DreadPirateRoberts

I found it helped to read more that a few pages at a time to get the momentum going.

It's kind of a chicken and the egg thing. I only read a few pages because I quickly grow bored with it (whereas I read Book 1 in pretty much a single sitting) so without the momentum I can't easily read more than a few pages and forcing it will either reclaim the momentum or increase the boredom.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

The Woman on the phone - was it Komiko? Toru insists he's good at recognizing voices, but in another scene I recall him having trouble identifying a voice.
[/spoiler]

Spoiler:

Experiencing a rare instance of foresight, I immediately knew that the woman on the phone was going to be his wife. At first, I assumed it was his wife (in real time) disguising her voice, searching for something from her husband that she couldn't directly ask him for. I had no idea what it was about, but I instinctually knew that the search for the woman on the phone would be the same search as the one for his wife. That she was dialing him up from the underworld only delighted me further. I'm a sucker for a good underworld passage story, and Murakami's story is a beautiful addition to that particular genre.

I'm still having trouble opening a discussion about certain aspects of the book so am instead latching onto other people's fits and starts....

[€uroMeinke]

Well here's another musing at page 333

Spoiler:

I'm intrgued that these underworld/dreamworld overlaps seem to have some sort of corporeal substance.

May Kasahara talks about "death" as a sort of organic object that sits within a person that can be skinned and probed.

Creta Kano's "defilement" unleashing some sort of soft tissue/tumor/afterbirth that seemed to be the casue of her pain/unfeelingness.

Toru's mark of course

But the story is filled with the characters describing thier feelings in terms of something physical growing inside them or part of them as if it is our repressed emotions/desire that form the cancers that grow in our bodies

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Well here's another musing at page 333

Spoiler:

And in many ways, these physical manifestations of feelings, as well as rememberences of the past are far more substantial than anything happening in the present to the characters. I like that view, that something isn't real, isn't solid until it's a memory. You don't really know a moment's true shape and form while it's ocurring. Only once you've experienced it, processed it, and internalized it does it become solid.

I'm on page 530, btw. The finish line is in sight.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Spoiler:

And in many ways, these physical manifestations of feelings, as well as rememberences of the past are far more substantial than anything happening in the present to the characters. I like that view, that something isn't real, isn't solid until it's a memory. You don't really know a moment's true shape and form while it's ocurring. Only once you've experienced it, processed it, and internalized it does it become solid.

I'm on page 530, btw. The finish line is in sight.

Spoiler:

Add to that Toru's desire to have everything "concrete" in this very non-concrete fluid world - perhaps it is his need to make these things physical objects so he can deal with them?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Spoiler:

I'm still in the re-read, but doean't that happen when he's in the well?

Spoiler:

Yes, and his actions in the well/hotel underworld manifest as Wataya's stroke. The confrontation in the well/hotel are the real climax but I did want to see Wataya get his ass kicked in person.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Spoiler:

And in many ways, these physical manifestations of feelings, as well as rememberences of the past are far more substantial than anything happening in the present to the characters. I like that view, that something isn't real, isn't solid until it's a memory. You don't really know a moment's true shape and form while it's ocurring. Only once you've experienced it, processed it, and internalized it does it become solid.

It was in the 300s when I had this reaction to the book (cross-posted from LJ):

Then, somewhere between pages 300 and 400, it began to feel like something I didn’t even know I had, a giant knot on the inside of my body that holds everything together, loosened up a bit, and hidden parts began to free-flow inside of me. Like the book’s unfolding story, something in me was being unwrapped and took in fresh air for the first time ever. It feels like I’m receiving much needed CPR and these internal experiences, given life anew, are walking about on colt legs. Or maybe it’s more like your subconscious solving a problem you’ve been having while you sleep. I cannot put into words exactly what is happening. I can’t even explain what exactly, in the book, triggered such a release. It’s as though the book is speaking directly to my subconscious and things are being sorted out without my having to put in the effort.

I've experienced the feeling of my stuffing being ripped out and put back inside of me, like I’m some kind of living taxidermy.

This feels like more like a fisherman has untied an old unreliable knot and is now fashioning something stronger and more flexible out of the same material. Meanwhile, something within the knot that was being contained is now running wild. Whatever this is, it's comprised of helium. I seem to be floating.

I seem to internaliz more than process the themes in this book. I react more by feeling than intellectualizing. It's why it's been so hard for me to discuss the book's specifics, I think.

[Not Afraid]

I'm right behind Chris in my re-read but I am noticing a lot of connections that I did not notice the first time. Although, I am afraid of trying to make things a lot more concrete than they are meant to be (interesting reaction from me since I am one that enjoys ambiguity).

There are many many references to the "other" world that have happened throughout the book so far.

Spoiler:

page 187, Wind-up bird is missing, Komiko has left and he waunders over to May's house in a daze. May hands him some lemon water to clear his head:

Ice clinked when I took it. The sound seemed to reach me froma distant wold. There were several gates conneting that world with the place where I was, and I could hear the sound because they all just happened to be opened at the moment. But this was strictky temporary. If even one of them closed the sound would no longer reach my ears.

Lt. Mamaya also think of his experience in Mongolia as reality that stops when he was thrust into the well. He dreams of slowly rotting at the bottom of the well and it seems that "sometimes it seemed to me that that was what had really happened and my life here was a dream." (pg 171)

But, to me the entire Mamiya story is so prophetic to Toru's own story and had such a profound effect on what he end up doing I find it hard to separate the two at times.

Of course, this all happens before the blur of what happens in the well.

The first reference to a well happend much earlier on in the book than I recall and I only would have noticed this on a second read.

Spoiler:

pg 28. Toru and Kumiko are arguing while seh is PMSing and she can't understand why he never takes out his bad moods on others. She says "maybe you've got this deep well inside of you and you shout into it, 'The king;s got donkey's ears!' and then everything's OK."

The man with no face?

Spoiler:

Is this his own pasivity that he doesn't listen to at certain times?