The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle discussion

http://www.geocities.jp/yoshio_osakab... Here is a little more on her sister.

Lance, can you explain a bit more about that link? Part of that text came from the book, and part did not. But it doesn't all sound like Murakami to me. Do you know the original source?

Sangita, what I gathered was that Malta was the woman in the labyrinth hotel, who stayed in darkness, and whose voice morphed into that of other women (as if she were channelling them). She warned Toru (Mr. Wind-Up Bird) not to flash his torch (or flashlight) in the room if he wanted her to be able to leave with him - once he'd killed the Noboru shadow figure. But Toru could not resist, he turned on his light, and the woman's voice was never heard again after that. In the real world of the book, Noboru dies and Malta disappears from the narrative, except for that one query of Toru's.

I thought her death (whether spiritual, physical or both) was meant to echo the deaths of great literary heroines who are penalised for their own or their lovers' failure to resist temptation - i.e. Orpheus and Eurydice's journey up from the underworld, and Lot's wife, known as Ado or Edith, in Genesis.

Lance wrote: "http://www.geocities.jp/yoshio_osakab... Here is a little more on her sister."

I don't remember this part... was it a different story or what?

It was a short story which appeared in a compilation of short stories including TV People 1990 published by Bungeishunju

My comments on the recurrent wells in this book and elsewhere in Murakami..

http://lingofiles.wordpress.com/categ...

Yea, that's a misprint for 'mystical'!

Lance wrote: "http://www.geocities.jp/yoshio_osakab... Here is a little more on her sister."

Thanks for that link, Lance! A perverse story, very Japanese in that way.

Yes, for some reason, it struck me as more disturbing than the Malta/Creta storyline in the actual book ... Thanks for the link, Lance.

At the end it seemed that he alluded to Malta Kano being Kumiko's older sister, and Creta Kano being Kumiko herself. That would explain the period clothing and makeup, Creta's (and Kumiko's) defilement by Noboru Watay, Creta's wearing of Kumiko's modern clothing, Creta's baby, and Toru's confession to May Kasahara that if he and Kumiko had a baby they were thinking of naming it Corsica. It tied it all together nicely.

uh, I thought Malta was just the one who guided Toru to the other world, no deeper meaning. She was just some kind of sign or warning to Toru, that he was indeed travelled from one real world to another 'undefined' one.

I'm with Camilla here, though I'm having trouble parsing out the degree of which they are the same. I think that's Murakami playing with the notion of what a character really is. TWUBC spends a lot of time dwelling on the notion of identity; the melding of characters seemed to disrupt the idea that there is such a thing as a "true self" or "core identity," especially in regards to Kumiko and Creta. I'd love to hear some thoughts.

Well, now that does make sense... regarding the fact that maybe Lieutenant Mamiya might be representing Toru, since they share the well experience. And Creta said that half the baby is Toru's and Mamiya's. It did knock some sense.

Ursula wrote: "Well, now that does make sense... regarding the fact that maybe Lieutenant Mamiya might be representing Toru, since they share the well experience. And Creta said that half the baby is Toru's and M..."

Yep yep. And since Toru is, in several ways, an analog to Murakami himself, we can say that Mamiya is an extension of Murakami. The reason this works for me is because this seems to be the first time Murakami really deals with historical context in his novels. To me, Murakami is suggesting that his link to the past is inextricable. This, as you mentioned, is most strongly exemplified by their shared experience in the well. I would argue that the symbol of the well is really a symbol of what I can only refer to as "identity." It is only in the well, after all, that these characters are able to access their subconscious (which brings us back to what td was saying).

I saw a definite connection between Creta and Kumiko. Both are living life on a more or less "normal" course when a sudden, sharp change causes them to start to become very promiscuous and, after a defilement by Noboru, "spiritually" promiscuous. What interests me even more is what it all means. I read somewhere online that, among the many themes and ideas in the book, the most prevailing one is Toru trying to finally, really feel something, which he does. My question is, how did Malta lead him to this goal. She seemed to be STOPPING him from confronting his proverbial demon in the hotel room and confusing his path. He seems to have figured out things largely on his own, maybe with the help of Mamiya and May. Also, any idea on the services Toru was providing for the other women? Spiritual promiscuity I'm assuming, but what was the purpose of it in the plot of the book?

You know, my take on Murakami is that he is not so interested in the answers, but in the questions. I don't think he has the answers himself to a lot of these questions, judging from what he has to say about his own work, and also judging from his reported responses when asked what something in his work "means." I think we could probably come up with a variety of interpretations, and none of them would be right or wrong, necessarily, since Murakami does not seem to want to sell us on some ultimate idea of Truth.

His interpreter, Jay Rubin, has said that Murakami replies often to queries about meaning by asking another question; by saying "perhaps" or "that is an interesting idea;" and/or by teasing Rubin himself about "thinking too much." I think it's part of this writer's generosity to his readers that he allows us to fill in the blanks as we like. He does seem to have some limits on this, though, judging again from something Jay Rubin has said, which is that, if he feels someone has gone way off track in making meaning of his work, he will diplomatically re-direct them, rather than accepting an awkward interpretation.

Here's a link that may interest some of you, although you may have already seen it (I just discovered it myself, but it's from Jul 2010). It's part of a UC Berkeley symposium on Japanese literature, featuring the works of Murakami. Jay Rubin is always worth listening to, as one of Murakami's translators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9krkf...

I thought Malta Cano was his daughter, since it was not really clear if the girl he had gotten pregnant had gone through with the abortion.

the book made me more curious and thirsty about what will be going to next. as i read the unread pages of the wind up bird chronicle. my addiction was getting more and more.
love it......

i finished this book last night and as i was about to fall asleep tonight i realized the connection between kumiko and creta. i think they are the same person, and that malta is kumiko's supposedly dead sister. kumiko and creta may not be the same physical person (though they might be), but they might be two bodies-of-sorts vying for the identity that is "kumiko". identity and its duality (or maybe even its multiple, seemingly infinite forms) is a heavy theme here. take for example the story of the boy finding his another version of his body in his bed. i think we can can all agree that the boy is cinnamon, and that this incident was what caused him to lose his voice. this is why he couldn't say the word "mother" toward the end. the incident probably has something to do with his father's gruesome murder. hence why the man who climbed the tree looked like his father and never came back down. the beating heart that was among the organs removed from his father's body.

anyway, creta being kumiko would explain how kumiko got pregnant as well as kumiko's admission that she slept with multiple men (just as creta had as a prostitute). it would also explain how she never enjoyed sex with toru, as creta said that for a long time she felt nothing at all. maybe one of the men she "slept with" before she left toru was noboru? it only states that creta was defiled, never how recently it was.

also i find malta suspicious. i think that maybe the woman in the hotel is not kumiko (never confirmed), but malta (or some part of her identity). however, i am wary of the comment the hollow man (faceless dude) made before leaving, that he is toru's only ally here (i am also pretty curious about who the faceless man is supposed to be). toru repeats what he said to himself before he enters the room, meaning murakami wanted to draw it to our attention. if the hollow man is his only ally, whose side is the mysterious woman on? she does seem to be leading him astray, telling him to leave before it is too late, among other things. perhaps she (malta) was somehow corrupted by noboru? also, malta is associated with water, and once toru leaves the hotel for a final time, water returns to the well (didn't honda say something about bewaring of water?). maybe it was her who somehow disrupted the flow?

what's also interesting is how creta and malta are never actually seen together, but malta does have that chat with toru and noboru that one time. they have connections. something seems amiss to me.

on the theme of fate and free will that are in this book, i think fate is seen in the story as something meant to be violated. my thoughts here are even less fleshed out than my thoughts on the whole creta/kumiko connection, so bear withe me as i try to explain them.

i think toru has the power to defy fate (or maybe everyone does; maybe he just has the strength/will to do it). during the zoo story, it is revealed how all the men will die and that they can do nothing about it. one of the soldiers sees all their deaths but his own, but we know how he dies from the author. they are helpless. likewise, mamiya talks about how he is fated to die in japan and feel no joy (or whatever). what confuses me here is the last letter he sends. what's the point of it? mamiya is supposedly cursed by boris to live an empty life, wouldn't he have already lived on thanks to his experience in the well? f this last letter was absent, it doesn't seem like it would change the story at all. but it's there, so it must somehow be important (or at least has the ability to be made into something important). maybe the incident where mamiya cannot kill boris occurs because fate says that boris can't be killed by him. i can't determine its significance just yet.

perhaps boris operates the same role for mamiya as noboru does for toru. that is, an evil figure in their life who must be defeated. but mamiya cannot defeat boris. maybe he is bound by his belief that his fate is sealed, and thus cannot muster the fate-defying will to actually kill boris.

but toru does have that special sort of will or ability to defy fate. the wind-up bird seems to be a harbinger of doom, or perhaps a reminder to all who hear it that fate is unavoidable. that everyone is just a wind-up doll whose path has already been determined. maybe the bird's call only convinces people they are powerless against fate, when really they can fight it if they have the will (like toru has). despite the fact that toru heard its call, and that malta and creta seem to always be telling toru about the danger he is in or that he will fail, he succeeds. and after he does, there is some mention of all the people he has saved that are connected to him. maybe he defied fate so that they didn't have to? or maybe he gave them hope? who knows. may did say she felt like her existence was within toru's greater existence, and that all she did seemed only an extension of toru's self (or something like that).

further, maybe the service toru and nutmeg perform for people is ridding their clients of their fear of fate or of death and inevitability? this would be in line with something may said about how death forces people to think and act, and without it humanity would do nothing. it would also make sense because the cure they offer is only temporary: soon enough, people will re-realize their mortality.

anyway it is five am, so i apologize for the sloppy writing and explanations. none of my ideas are really fleshed out and i am thinking about and expounding on them as i write. i just had to get my thoughts out so i could go to sleep. if anyone wants to add to or comment on anything i said, please do so. there is so much going on in this book and i am dying to talk about it with someone, anyone, even people on the INTERNET.

I am new to reviewing books, but I see many of the women characters as different aspects of the same woman. For me the whole story is one man, one woman coming to grips with their relationship and their many selves. Each person has their self identity, how they see themselves, the person their partner sees them as, their fantasy self. These are all layers of the same painting, in essence the id, ego, super ego if you are Freudian. So for example, in your fantasy self, the one who pursues lovers, you speak with a sultry voice, are sexually aroused constantly, lie without remorse.

So when our main character encounters a woman in room 208 it is a version of his wife. He needs to find who she is. This is the whole story. To preserve his relationship he needs to understand his partner better, yet he fails over and over. She opens herself to him, offers hints and sometimes misdirection, but it is his quest. Inside her are all these characters: a traumatized little girl, a pain wracked young adult (one using sex to shield her from pain, perhaps due to the trauma of an accident or fraternal abuse...whether real or just imagined...); a reflection of her serious sister emerges as the part of her able to pursue a career. She wears her red cap and can find things, she pursues her dreams of travel. Ultimately she plays the dutiful wife with a man who seems to understand her and offer a patient partner. Note that Room 208 is the same room. A hotel offering many rooms, many minds to enter....the id? It is in use end one mind, one room he entered (via sex?). Others also enter the room, but are all men. Only the woman is trapped there. It is both her mind and womb I believe....Entering this room can be equivalent to both a violation or loving sexual exploration. One can bring a knife to cut or a bat to defend. It is a metaphor for sex I believe, along with the balm of whiskey (love?). No women enters a room occupied by a man, only men enter. The wife is a mask, as are the other characters, for aspects of the same woman. To find her our protagonist must understand that all of these women he is meeting are aspects of the same complex woman he loves, not just the facade he eats spaghetti with.

Recall that nutmeg is obsessed with clothing, just as Kumiko is. He mentions her clothes are always perfectly pressed. Nutmeg can't stand him in bad clothes, and has the means to make him dress properly. I am sure these represent inner urges of his wife. What wife doesn't wish her husband dressed better? His inability to recognize his wife's voice through all these other characters, over and over again, speaks to the ineptness of men trying to understand their partner. That is my view.

So in summary, just like all characters spring from a single person (the author), in this novel all the characters are aspects of a male-female relationship. They interact along physical, spiritual, metaphorical, sexual, intellectual, reproductive, and other dimensions. For me all female characters are aspects of one partner and all male characters are of aspects of the other partner. Their interactions are inept efforts at mutual discovery.

The central plot is that the female has given up the fight to understand and explore understanding her partner. She eludes, evades and leaves. As she is departing, she offers hints of her true selves, but the male fails to see them as her, over and over. In her oldest aspects, as nutmeg as Malta, she is indifferent. She wants to help him understand her, but her interest is not sexual. Nutmegs husband was slaughtered and his organs removed. There is nothing left. He has no heart, lungs, nothing is left. He is the hallow man. Only the shell remains for which she has no feelings. Her youngest selfs, however, still find him fascinating. As a young girl she is intrigued, and is still trying to understand him. She kisses, tortures to some degree. She writes him long letters about herself and her situation in the hope that he will understand, care, want to learn more. But our main character says he never received them. Her efforts to share herself, her experience in the full moon, becoming a woman for him,...all this is lost on him. It is not 'solid enough.' As the pain wracked young adult, who felt nothing but pain, she becomes promiscuous sexually, but still wants to join with him too. She bonds with him sexually because she wants to be held. As a dutiful wife, she starts to focus on career and drifts away. His inner soldier endures. Imagines losing her is because if some dark force and not his own failings. These manifest as external forces like war that force him to kill the animals, compromise to survive the prison, driving friends away. Ultimately alienating his partner.

For example, the books climactic confrontation with norobu, the politically ambitious facade, could be his own rejection of his own internal political and social climbing ambitions. All those people who want him to be a public figure (the author) who stare at him through the TV in the lobby are rejected. They chase his simpler self trying to kill the side of him that wants to sit with his cat instead. So ego fights with id and ID defeats ego. The zen, inner hollow man, is his ally because it is he who wants him to feel. The hallow man needs a heart inside, so he needs to lead him towards his partner and connection to another, to fill the void with the possibility of love. So he defeats his ambition, the thing pushing his partner away, but she may be already too far gone from him to get back. She respects him in the end, but that spark is perhaps gone. She feels guilt for the feelings lost, because perhaps part of what she needed from him was that part, his dominating/violating self (?) that reminds her of her father/brother (?) perhaps connected to his talent aspects, the creative talent/ambition to be successful. It speaks to the complexities of what attracts a woman to a man and vice versa. Do we have inner fantasies of selves that need or are attracted to something that is perhaps bad or evil inside the other- the partner we join with? What is is that makes us feel that spark, whether pain or joy and what causes that spark to die and have us feel nothing in a marriage? Is it a connection we find to their many selves, something similar to a layer that resembles a parental relationships, sibling relationship, etc.

Just my 2 cents.

I think that there might be a dark side to the Malta character. See chapter 30 titled Malta Kano's tail when she is having tea with Toru Okada in place with bloody scalps hanging from the beams. After all she is doing work (at least mediating) for Noburu Wataya and in this chapter she is sided by Noburu's man Ushikawa in the form of a dog. Actually the chapter has two titles the second is Boris the manskinner which can mean that Malta can be considered a manskalper. I can imagine even that she might be even the slashing killer of Nutmeg's husband.

Jeremy wrote: "i finished this book last night and as i was about to fall asleep tonight i realized the connection between kumiko and creta. i think they are the same person, and that malta is kumiko's supposedly..."

I know this was posted almost 10 years ago but I still wanted to reply. I don't know if you will ever read this, but I created this account specifically to reply and I generally don't post comment on the internet.
I finished the book a few days ago and was left with all these fragmented questions and my own makeshift explanations, however they never fit into a cohesive narrative and they were never sufficient to satisfy my need for closure. Everything was so jumbled up in my mind that it left me at unease and unable to get good sleep in the last few days - I mean it: this book had an inexplicable and profound impact on me.
That was until I read your take on the book. I am so grateful that you shared your thoughts on this, as they closely align with my own understanding of the book - I just couldn't make sense of it as well as you did. Now I can rest in peace! :')