I have just finished Haruki Murakami's -The wind-up bird chronicle....and i have no idea what to make of it...indeed it is unlike anything i've read...leaving me as lost as the protagonist toru okada....

it's a book churned out of various genres...one moment it seemed to be a quiet, peaceful narration of contemporary life...an ordinary man, his ordinary life...which turned out anything but ordinary...we are taken on a mysterious roller-coaster ride...meeting characters with amusing names whose earthly existence seems questionable...then we go on a downward spiral of detective fiction, historical narration and the supernatural....everything eventually get suck into a black hole where one can no longer discern fact frm fiction, truth frm lies, dreams from reality, conscious frm the unconscious...at once it seems all....and not...

with no resolutions at all to all the mysteries...it leaves one frustrated....and one's imagination do not always provide solace especially after being taken on what seems to be a wild-goose chase.
but it seems this work of fiction will not be soon forgettable...it is utterly bizarre yet somewhere...it seems to hint at something conceivable...that at present i cannot quite comprehend...

even if it fails in the works of literature...or not...the real/surreal quality of the work works efficiently i guess...sweeping us along the tide...entwined into the mind of toru...

on a side-note, i sorta freaked out this morning cos the night before...i was dreaming and i know consciously i was...and i fell in and out of sleep a couple of times and the dream continued in successions...but how is it in consciousness one could dream?...surrealism is such an enigma....

anyway the historical narration of manchukuo (which i didn't like) were so lucid and stark it seemed so real that i cannot erase the image out of my mind...imagine a man-skinner....no i'm not gonna dwell into that...

on the other hand, the supernatural,sci-fi,detective adventures were ok i guess...i would pick the parts on room 208 as my favourite cos i have a thing for bar scenes..the wine glasses and ice buckets and the play of lights and shadows i find intriguing...(i immediately recalled the scenes frm lee myung se's latest film-M...with the flashing sign boards and tinkling wine glasses...and cleverly used light and shadows...it's a beautifully shot film which you should not miss)....

if any of you have read the wind-up bird chronicle...i will be happy to hear your thoughts...and perhaps shed some light...

ps...guess why's the blog opening song-the thieving magpie? ;)