The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

"It's like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you've got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can't tell what's going on under the cover. Maybe the instant rice pudding first turns into macaroni cheese in the darkness when nobody's looking and only then turns back into rice pudding... I would be kind of relieved if, every once in a while, after you put rice pudding mix in the microwave and it rang and you opened the top, you got macaroni cheese."

The Wind-up bird Chronicle, written in Japanese by Haruki Murakami and translated to English by Jay Rubin, begins like a bag of instant rice pudding mix and ends up with delicious macaroni cheese. It's strange, it's illogical, but it's a damn fine read.

It tells the story of Toru Okada, a happily married individual who has recently quit the job he was unhappy with and is now living the good life, cooking, cleaning, reading and enjoying jazz. The early chapters biggest worry is the disappearance of the couple's cat. Things take a turn for the worse, however, when Toru's wife also does a disappearing act, ending their life together without even saying goodbye.

Where has she gone? Why has she left? Will they ever get back together? Will the cat come back? The quest to answer these questions bumps into several more along the way, the answers to most being far from straight forward, the answers to many being non-existant.

So, how does Toru go about finding his answers? He does what any loving husband would. He climbs down a dried up well and sits there for a few days...

..mmm.... macaroni cheese....

If you still need further encouragement to read the book, turn to page 11, 4 lines down, start reading from "I'm in bed. I've just come out of the shower, and I'm not wearing a thing."

And there's plenty more where that comes from.

Enjoy.