My experience with Murakami - 1

Before we begin, I am in no way qualified to review this book. However, I might not be able to move on with life if I don't give this the closure it deserves. I thought my first encounter with Murakami would be through Norwegian Wood. Like everybody else. It could've been through Kafka on the shore too, I saw that book on my dad's desk for almost three months. But no. Maybe this book landed at the right time. Or there is no right time. Sometimes you find the book, and in most cases, it is the book that finds you. With the wind-up bird chronicle, it definitely has to be the second one for me. 

The Wind-up bird chronicle - Haruki Murakami

I love it when narratives are non-linear. Life, as I've lived it in the last 20 years, or for most of the part that I can remember has not been linear. I've seen people around me leading a linear life. 

School->College->job/grad school/get married -> become an adult -> have kids -> realise at 40 you are your parent and you've grown into the same quality you once despised as a kid, only to be despised by your own kid. If a third person were to look at your life and the generation before yours through a magnifying glass across the threads of realities, it is impossible to not find similar knots. Knots of fate that refuse to come undone. That was my first thought after finishing the book. Knots, or rather responses to traumatic events that spans across generations and takes the form of a cat, an evil influencer, psychic prostitutes and a house.

I was introduced to the well during the most turbulent phase I've encountered so far. Turbulence not by the means of violence or hardship, but rather the uncertainty and inability to control what's going on. Much like Toru Okada, though completely unrelated, placements have completely been out of my control. The only thing in control was my actions and reactions. But hey, at 21 you don't really know how to do it. So while I patiently waited for my turn. I couldn't find a well. Even if I did, my obsession with clean spaces wouldn't let me go inside and sit. I have a friend who matches the craziness of May Kasahara, but unlike May, he had his life pretty much figured out. So to my professors I became the girl with the big black headphones and a black book. To my reality, that became the well. 

I raced through parts 1 and 2 because they mirrored the unpredictability I was facing in my own life. but right after I started part 3, I had one thing after the other to postpone this. Project reviews, second assessment, and a temporary end to the unpredictability mayhem. So when I went back to part 3, I wasn't living it. Rather, I became an observer with a perspective of my own. And that is the reason I think I was able to finish the book. 

This has been a challenging read. But for the first time in years, I had the privilege to sit in stillness and recount and re read and make connections - something I haven't done in a very long time. Long enough that I don't remember what had me so invested like this before. And with sentences that hit harder than reality, this isn't a book you read. It is a book you live through, and possibly be birthed again - mentally, or emotionally. Because it'll wreck both of those. The only suggestion I'd say is, don't let people around you ask what the book is about. You will have a harder time explaining than understanding what's going on. So I'm leaving you with my favorite line from the book.

"A person’s destiny is something you look back at afterwards, not something to be known in advance."