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Summary: Still caught by Haruki's world...
Review: Although it does have flaws in his way of writing compared to other Japanese writers, but it is very entertaining. I really enjoyed seeing a lot of characters here - Toru, his wife Kumiko, Toru's neighbor teenager May Kasahara, mysterious Malta & Creta Kano sisters, also mysterious Nutmeg & Cinnamon Akasaka and his dead father, a cursed Lieutenant Mamiya, a fortune-teller Honda, an ugly Ushikawa, Toru's opponent Noboru Wataya, scary Russian Boris, straying guitarist, 'duck people' and so on. Murakami's description of these characters is astonishingly clear. I did not really like his solution proposed at the very end of this story, but still worth to read for anybody. I do not know if there is any other book which is as captivating as this, except Marquez's 'Solitude...'.
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Summary: A 21 words review
Review: I liked the book. It had a great atmosphere and everything happened in such a slow, pleaseant way.. Interesting story too..
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Summary: Murakami's Best BEST Book!
Review: I have read everything of Murakami's that is available in English and a tiny bit of what is not, and this is my absolute favorite. He gets a lot of flak in Japan for being too much of a "popular" writer, and I think that this novel proves that it is possible to be popular and be a legitimate writer at the same time. "Wind-up Bird Chronicles" does an amazing job of linking contemporary Japan to pre-war/wartime Japan, on both an individual and societal level, without coming to any easy conclusions. I don't want to tout this work as a great way to make sense of modern Japan, because that would be reductionist, but I think that it is a sweeping look at a society, as well as a fascinating personal journey. Some of the other reviews that were posted here when I wrote this try to make sense of Murakami in terms of very "Japanese" authors like Mishima Yukio, which is fine, but I think that it's important to emphasize that this book is a great story set in a Japan which is no more mysterious or exotic than any other culture.And the translation is great!
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Summary: A cosmic and magical story
Review: What an astonishing story! Here's a nice fellow who from page 1 meets extraordinary people: a young teenager with incredibly profound remarks and questions, a sister pair Malta and Creta Kano who seemed to have deliberately crossed his life, a mother and her silent son who are keys to the secrets of his own life, an astrologist who gives him precious hints and sends him a friend who indicates through his own story that fate is part of it. In addition, Toru because of his simplicity and his open mind becomes some sort of knight, the only one capable of stopping the absolute evil. The more I progressed through the pages the more I felt that all the characters were part of a cosmic chess game, each one of them related by some means to another disregarding time and space. It seems as if not only the story is part of the cosmic arrangement of things, everything in the book is part of the story, the page numbering, the breaks, the chapter headings, the picture and the drawings, the final comments on the font type. In addition, I got to know so much on the Japanese presence in China and Outer Mongolia, and some parts of the story playing in the Siberian ice desert is simply frightening you to the bones. A really magical story that leaves no one indifferent.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an amazing book. It is incredibly diverse, spanning many years, two countries, and several specific settings, all while weaving in and out of a central plot. Toru Okada is an intriguing protagonist, a complex charachter who's personality is both easily detectable and endearing. He is an ordinary man under extraordinary circumstances. And the ending was quite fulfilling. I'm usually not satisfied with book's endings, but this one didn't dissapoint.
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Summary: Wind Me Up and Throw Away the Key!!
Review: I could stay in the world this book creates forever. Only once before have I had such a total response to a book. The writing, the theme, the character development, THE COVER DESIGN, the design of the section breaks, even the design of the last page with notes on the print type! I was stunned! Only Kathrine Dunn's "Geek Love" has had this effect on me. Being a fan of Kenzaburo Oe led me to buy this book to sample more Japanese literature. Given these two authors, I am almost ready to elevate Japan to the status of Ireland in the literary world! Whenever I put down the book, I would just stare at the cover art and think about the emotions that the section brought out in me. Kudos to Murakami and Rubin and to the designer of the book.
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Summary: Mesmerizing from start to finish--I loved it
Review: I too was unfamiliar with Murakami, and I have to admit I was initially attracted to the book by its wild cover art (!). As soon as I picked it up and started reading, I was hooked by the prose that was at least as exciting and unusual as the dustjacket. From page 1 until the very end. I even found the historical digressions fascinating. While other reviewers have resented them, I found them integral to the whole feeling of the book, and certainly its underlying messages. Murakami's world is bizarre, spooky, and (oddly) believable at the same time. I looked forward to immersing myself within it each time I picked up the (unnoticeably lengthy) book. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: An author with a captivating formula disappoints.
Review: I bought this book with the hope of getting a little more insight into the Japanese mind after having read Yukio Mishima's "Patriotism." Mishima's story was astounding in its setting of the mood and mindset of a Japanese military man who had gotten involved in an action that had failed. It was terrifying in its descriptions of the sucide scene. I have to say that the experience of reading Murakami's book was both rewarding and frustrating. The book is very engrossing (I kept turning the pages) as it keeps promising to reveal something of worth but then it fails to keep the promise. I got the feeling that Murakami has found a formula for writing books (sex, mysticism, ESP, unresolved personal relationships, etc) by means of which he can grab a lot of readers. For what he had to say, the book could have been half as long and I thought that the business of flowing through walls was pretty silly (I'm an engineer which may explain my problem with the book.) The ESP-like episodes were a little easier to take. I think that leaving it up to the reader to decide what the "alien" thing is inside people is a cop-out. It may be, however, that the telephone and internet sex generation will assume that the sex in this book fits right in to their notions of normality. The author is gifted in his ability to describe the relationships between people. I wish he had stayed with the relationship between Toru Okada and his wife, Kumiko. In the end, he seemed to have made Kumiko into a half-dozen people which may have been his intent but it was unsatisfying to me. I was also left wondering if Murakami's modern Japan is so unlike the Japan that Mishima wrote about. If the names were changed and the type of food eaten were not mentioned, one would think he was in America most of the time. Is this just his formula for widening the readership of his work or does it truly reflect modern Japan? My final comment is that he does not really do much for the Japanese in terms of bringing them to understand the crimes committed against Asia - the atrocities he mentions are relatively minor and committed by both the Russians and the Japanese.
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Summary: Possibly the Japanese equivalent of Gravity's Rainbow
Review: Or possibly not. But a damn good read anyway. It starts with a spaghetti snack and a missing cat. Somehow it moves through World War II Manchuria under Japanese occupation (Manchukuo) and later to a forced labor camp in Siberia. Meanwhile, a wife vanishes, a woman analyzes water, her sister becomes a prostitute of the mind, several people spend time at the bottom of dry wells, there are several wet dreams, and there's a wig factory, Dunkin' Donuts in Tokyo, and hotel room 208. About as diverse as you can get. Mystery, fantasy, war, coffee. Engaging, and almost unputdownable.
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Summary: This is his best novel.
Review: Since I have read Mr Murakami's novels, this book is excellent in depicting the world. This is full of metaphors. To be frank, I am anxious about this is his last best novel. You! Just read it.
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