Murakami’s book The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (WUBC) was more of an experience rather than a book, and a surreal experience at that
I was introduced to Haruki Murakami only a couple of years back and didn't know of him or any of his work earlier. I tried to read as many books and his stories as I could, and enjoyed most of them. I of course couldn't afford quite a few books of his and saved them for later…
I am currently unemployed and keeping as tight a leash on expenses as I can. Books are out of the question and more of an occasional indulgence and usually within a price limit or if there’s a good deal. Murakami’s books are out of the question.
Which is why the surreal experience.
I am flying to Hyderabad for exploring projects and employment opportunities. My mind is in a blue funk and I am despondent, out of my depth completely blanked out given the uncertainity. (I don't even know when I shall be back from Hyderabad).
As I fly out of Mangalore, and am waiting to board the plane, I am saying my prayers and trying to carve a space for my mind - the waiting areas are super crowded with many flights lined up for boarding. My flight is called and I jump into the bus and stand near the driver as the rest of the bus is crowded.
I notice a black brick like object in the pane in the front of the driver and notice its a book, possibly left behind by another passenger. (There’s enough space to rest your bag and a handrail to help passengers hold onto. I ask the driver if this is his, and he says no trying to concentrate on his driving. I ask him if I can take this, and he says yes. I pick it up and try stuffing this in bag, and its about half the size of the bag I have.
I realise later when I reach my home that this is by Murakami and one I haven't read.
But first a note about my trip. I am staying at my parents’ home in Hyderabad that was recently vacated by tenants and there’s nothing left in the home i.e. no furniture or any household material. Its just my suitcases which contain some clothes, and some utensils which my wife has packed carefully to help me settle in and manage independently if I want to. I am lucky that I have generous neighbours and relatives who lend me furniture and a gas cylinder, stove, etc that I have some basic amenities.
Sadly nothing works out in Hyderabad and its one of the bleakest in terms of both achievement, as well as future outlook and prospects, and I spent all of three weeks there. But what it serves instead is a sojourn, a retreat and for me to meditate and reflect.
And this book which miraculously came into my hands is part of that process. Yes, its crazily surreal but as I start reading it I cant help the feeling that this was meant to be. (there's even a reference to market research surveys, can it get any closer than that?)
The first few chapters are outstanding and I am instantly hooked, and it has all the trademark intrigue and enigma that Haruki’s stories have. But I am feeling guilty and decide to post a query on social media checking if someone lost this book. I am hoping whoever lost this will allow me to return it to them once i have completed it. There’s no response and I continue reading it.
Earlier, this was not a book I particularly was looking forward to, as I didn't know what that title meant and I am keen to also know what it meant.
WUBC is about a man who’s currently unemployed, and taking a break to figure out what he plans to do in life. He worked at a law firm as a gopher, and now not sure if he wants to take further exams or do full course in writing or some other career, but open to options. He is supported by his wife who’s working in a PR firm and actually encourages him to take the break supporting him.
Though the book revolves around the hero, its not written in first person.
Both the hero and his wife are recluses and estranged or staying separately and independently from their families by choice. They don't have kids, and the one unplanned kid they had the wife aborts.
The opening chapters have all the intrigue and weird characters and situations that Haruki likes and its hard not to get hooked. There’s an elderly blind prophet who foretells the couple what they can expect. There’s a cat which is missing. There are phone calls from a mysterious caller who entices the hero to share & indulge in his sexual fantasies on the phone. He meets a young mysterious teenager who lends to the intrigue as she promises to help him find the missing cat.
Where does the name come from? Early in the book there’s a mention of a bird that makes a name of a spring un-wound like in a mechanical toy that is wound to produce a sound. He keeps calling it the wind-up bird but never really sees what its like and only hears it croaking this noise.
WUBC is one of the most frustrating books of Haruki’s to read and becomes a let down as some of the most promising threads are lost, and violate the Chekhov’s Knife theory which says each introduced character or piece must have a role to play. Most of these intriguing characters are not followed up on and disappear.
Instead most of the book is consumed in a meticulously detailed and rather un-inspiring diversion into the Russo-Japanese wars in the Mongolian wastelands. This has a lot of detailed description of the tortured methods carried out. How virulent the hatred and mistrust was among the soldiers of each side, and the machinations of the most violent tyrants that lead each team. For a neutral reader this seems somewhat one sided and more sympathetic to the Japanese.
All of this sadly consumes about half of the book and leaves out the reader. It is however narrated by one of the survivors who actually has one of the most promising threads and is wasted out. This is one of the soldiers who not only manages to survive (as foretold by the soothsayer who also fought along with the survivor in Mongolia). This soldier had been thrown into a dry well completely naked and bruised, wounded with no chance of survival.
Instead of dying at the point of near death when he’s about to lose consciousness and his touch with life, the sun comes exactly perpendicular to the deep well and for exactly a few seconds there is a brightness that engulfs this deep well, and also the soldier’s body (and consciousness) and seems to bless him with life.
He manages to live and is brought out of the well by the future soothsayer compatriot. But the soldier’s life is an empty shell and he only spends time later waiting for death and wishes he had instead died in the well.
This incident becomes one of the key points of narration in the book.
The former soldier visits the hero’s home to actually fulfill the soothsayer’s last wishes and execute the will, whereby he’d left a gift box to the hero. The gift box surprisingly turns out to be empty and save the accompanying note has nothing in it, and somewhat portends to the emptiness in the hero’s future.
The Hero too starts seeking out a similar well where he can try and find that ray of enlightenment and the gift of life. And he finds a similar abandoned dry well in the lane behind his home, where one of the empty houses which is on the block after some mysterious deaths took place in the home.
the hero descends into the well and while he does not find the gift of life, that abandoned well serves to provide him solace to meditate on life and search his consciousness. In this well night and day are melded together (its a covered well) and sensations cease to make sense.
As I was reading this I couldn't help wondering if the empty home that I was staying in at that point in time was my own dry well where I was seeking the future.
There are new characters introduced who have their own mysteries. There are two sisters named after the islands of Malta and Crete, who have their own enigmatic mysterious powers of prediction and help the hero discover more of himself. These two disappear midway and instead another mysterious lady and her son are introduced, who help the hero utilize his mysterious powers of healing and providing relief to affected souls.
The hero’s wife meanwhile has left him, never to return or providing him an explanation why. Her dark villainous brother who was a professor turned politician holds some power over the events in the book.
Just before I left for Hyderabad I had completed Camino Island by John Grisham where he talks about some authors who have an outline and know how the book is meant to end, and others who create characters and situations and allow the characters to build and end the story themselves, and the authors have limited control over what will happen.
WUBC is somewhat like that where Haruki gave up and the story ran out of steam (possibly because he indulged in too much historical digging of the wars that feature in the story) and instead it is a rather un-inspired and loosely tied up mess. Or thats what I thought initially.
However, its role in my life at that point in time was extremely uncanny and a little worrying too. it appeared mysteriously into my hands. Midway to my visit to my well, seeking light I planned my return from my Hyderabad, and had thought that I would take this heavy tome with me if I cant complete its imposing 650 pages by then. But mysteriously I manage to finish the last chapter on the night before I am to leave.
The book leaves me unfulfilled (pretty much like my visit had been) - there were a lot of engaging moments though and some intensely inspiring moments - which I had to simply tweet about and share the insights from there. So, it wasn't exactly a complete waste.
And then as I left Hyderabad and kept thinking what just had happened in the three weeks that didn't do much to me and was so much out of my hands (pretty much like most of my life), I couldn't help but think that this was the way it was meant to be. You couldn't make any sense out of life. Thats how philosophy and religion might have been born - and no one right or wrong answer, all of them apply. But at a distant point in time, hopefully for me in the near future, it might reveal itself. All the different points of experience from my solitary stay in Hyderabad - ones that seemed extra ordinary would come together and reveal to me what the visit was about, pretty much like the different unrelated incidents in the book finally yield to me what actually happened to the Hero and where they took him…
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