The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

January 29, 2007
Amazingly long, incredibly pricey, wildly experimental, often confusing but never boring, Murakami's most famous novel has been brought to audio life with extreme dedication: by Naxos, a company that regularly wins prizes, and by a reader with an uncommon combination of skills. Degas is already a Murakami veteran, having read the audio version of A Wild Sheep Chase
(Naxos), and has worked on radio, stage and even cartoon voice (including Mr. Bean
). He catches the constantly changing mental landscape of Murakami's fertile imagination—which moves from detective story to explicit sexual fantasy, heartbreaking Japanese WWII historical flashback, everyday details of married life (cooking, shopping and pet care) and even the occasional burst of satiric humor. Degas treats it all with the clarity and calmness of a very deep, very still pool. Certainly not for everyone's taste or budget, but anyone interested in this important author will find something to enlighten them. Available as a Vintage paperback (Reviews, Aug. 18. 1997).

Toru Okada is a friendly, easy-going fellow, but his life is foundering. After quitting his job, he loses his cat, then his wife. Strange people pop inexplicably into his life, complicating his story with their own. Is it possible these mean something? Narrator Rupert Degas juggles this rich layering of stories into a kind of clarity, if not exactly meaning--though meaning is really what Toru and the reader are both after. With its continuously nonplussed tone, Degas's relaxed acceptance of the story's ambiguity plays right into Murakami's hand. Writer and narrator conspire thus to betray the reader's fondest hopes: easy answers! There are none, after all, but nothing is spoiled by this discovery. Instead, we have Murakami's most mature exploration of Japan's war-ravaged past meeting the present. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine