04 January 2010

Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle


Why this need arose in me so suddenly, why it happened not with you but with someone else, I have no idea. But the desire I felt then was impossible to suppress, nor did I even try. Please understand: not for a moment did it occur to me that I was betraying you in any way. The sex I had in that hotel bed with him was something close to madness. To be totally honest, I had never in my life felt anything so good. No, it wasn’t that simple: it didn’t just “feel good.” My flesh was rolling in hot mud. My mind sucked in the sheer pleasure to the point of bursting-and then it burst. It was absolutely miraculous. It was one of the most wonderful things that had ever happened to me.

-Kumiko Okada-
Excerpt from the first letter sent to Toru after her disappearence.

Oo-kay… enough with the Vivid-video description ;) hold your pseudo-orgasmic feeling :D hehe… This is my 1st e-book, given by my ex-LDR-bf for my 28th birthday. Apparently, according to him, I reminded him of one of the main character in the book ;p and punya la x best character tu ;p haha!

This story revolves around Toru Okada, a jobless guy who happened to be good at home chores (I so wanna a hubby just like that ;) LDC - hint2 ;p) Eheheks!

Anyway, what seems to be a mundane life for this simple Mr.Okada, a chain of bizzare events took place & completely changed his life. First his cat is missing & the wife asked him to meet a medium to find the cat. Simultaneously while searching for the missing cat, he met a morbid teenage girl who’s not in school by her own choice. Then the wife went missing without a word and at the same time he learnt abt his brother in-law’s secret past through the medium’s sister. Then the wife finally wrote him a letter stating that she’s been having an affair and would like to divorce him. Then he spent the night in the well just to find clarity of the mind and also becoz later on the teenage girl took away the rope ladder & sealed the opening of the well on purpose. So, once he’s out from the well he had sex with the medium sister & the events got weirder & weirder until he nearly died in an attack. Sheesh!

Trust me, no stories will ever get weirder than this and yet, it is so engaging to learn that all these weird stuff is what made you keep on reading it until the end. It’s like a bizzare enchantment – like I’ve been voodooed or something to read the whole thing ;p sigh!

However, I have yet to decode the subliminal message within this book but to learn that my ex thinks that I’m just like Kumiko Okada, it’s err… kinda disturbing ;p lol! But I do think it’s something to do with Kumiko’s childhood that made him think she & I were very much alike. Or maybe the fact that Kumiko always keep things to herself perhaps ;p

I won’t say this is one of the best book I’ve read but the manner of Murakami’s story-telling is so intriguing that it makes it read-worthy – you’ll sorta be drifted away in this weirdo-land of wonder.

P/s: Whoever wish to read the book kindly provide me your email address, I’ll email to you a.s.a.p :) Sometimes I wish I cud have my own Kindle & have more e-books but to think that I can’t flip through the pages with my bare fingers & smell that paper-back scent, urgh! What’s the point of reading, really.

Footnote : LDR stands for long-distance relationship & LDC is o’course my Leo DiCaprio ;) haha!

5 comments:

Sasha Sharifuddin said...

have to agree on kindle!!i can never live without the pages and the smell of books..new AND old!!

haha..komen lari topic. although this book sounds a bit too weird n dark for me..but the excerpt you gave does sound like a book well written even if the storyline is weird..

email kat aku beb..

iNsOmNiAc said...

alrite! ada geng suka bau paperback ;) hehehe...
okay will do, i'll email to ur gmail la eh?

thinker bell said...

woman, i cant do e-books. my first was dan brown's da vinci code, and i dont think i enjoyed it that much. i need the fingers to flip the pages.

and btw, i know someone else who loves murakami. the girl named Polly who is on the list.

btw, i love murakami too. will write a few that i have read. cheers. and funnily enough, i havent read this.

iNsOmNiAc said...

i can empathize, really :) coz halfway reading it i ended up printing the whole damn thing juz for the sake of flipping thru the pages ;p hur hur~

and sum more, if u select the 'read out loud' function (ini kes cuba membaca sambil bekerja ;p) the voice sounded juz like zombie *shudder* hate it!

to be frank, i haven't read that much of murakami so, i'm looking fwd to read ur review, gf ;)

Sasha Sharifuddin said...

i have a feeling i'll be printing out the copy too!!heheh!tak boleh laa baca on the pc..takat blog n emails ok lagi. a whole book....*click print!*