A man’s cat and then his wife disappear, and he descends into a strange underground search
What it is about
Toru Okada is an unemployed man in Tokyo whose cat goes missing and then his wife leaves without a word. As he searches for them, he meets a series of strange people, including a teenage neighbor and a psychic. He spends days at the bottom of a dry well, and the story slips between present and the war in Manchuria.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who like long, mysterious and dreamlike novels.
What you will get
A long and puzzling book that does not explain itself. It is often named as Murakami’s masterpiece.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Literary Fiction · Mystery · Dreams · History
Length
607 pages · ≈ 17 h
More about this book
Characters
Toru Okada, May Kasahara and Lieutenant Mamiya.
Setting
Tokyo and Manchuria in the 1930s.
What makes it different
A bizarre, rambling mystery that mixes the everyday with the surreal.
Feel
Strange, hypnotic and eerie.
Kafka on the Shore
Perfume
How Late It Was, How Late
The Keepers of the House
The Virgin Suicides
The Goldfinch
A Brief History of Seven Killings
The Secret History