Stranger on Earth

Darkness, wetness, claustrophobia – three unpleasant elements that we usually associate with the water-well. The well, due to its mysterious and sinister status, has in the past featured prominently in popular Japanese culture, with perhaps the horror trilogy Ringu being the prime example. It plays a central role in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle . The first page of my 1998 Harvill edition is ink-black with a white circle hovering in the top half, representing the perspective of one who sits at the bottom of a well and looks up. This is an ominous foreshadowing of what is to happen to Toru half-way through the novel. In Book 2, Chapter 5, Toru descends to the bottom of the well on the Miyawaki property for the first time. The rationale behind this strange act is never clearly spelt out, but the reader would not be wrong to deduce from the circumstances in Toru’s life that he believes by spending some time in the well, his mind will find the peace that it desperately needs. What...

Like every major author's tour-de-force, Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is a sprawling, all-encompassing literary heavyweight. It is also something of an all-consuming black hole, a Pandora's Box that can unleash a darkness no reader has encountered before in literature. To claim that one has understood everything contained within its six-hundred pages would be conceit. This is therefore my bungling attempt, written in two parts, to make sense of a world where no sense is supposed to exist. To facilitate my writing, no summaries of the book's convoluted plot will be provided. For these, please refer to the almighty Wikipedia, or better still, pick up a copy of the book. For the purpose of delivering an organised discussion, three recurring factors in the book will be considered: (1) The mysterious appearances of supporting characters, (2) the symbolism of the well, and (3) the phenomenon of pain. At times it is inevitable that these three factors will be ...