![]() The people Okada meets on his journey – or perhaps wanderings is a better word – differ wildly from one another, but all share a common theme which keeps them all opposed to Okada himself: they all, strange and absurd as they may be, maintain a clear sense of personal identity. Okada and his wife, Wataya’s sister, have even taken to naming their cat after this villainous academic, arguing that this is because the cat resembles him, but in fact doubling down on – indeed encouraging – the looming shadow of Wataya that is draped over their lives. Toru Okada, our unsuccessful and futureless protagonist, is constantly at odds with his brother-in-law, the obviously psychopathic and hugely successful intellectual, Noboru Wataya. This novel is an enormously abstract journey, taking place in a dry and still world. ![]() Toru has no plan and has seemingly taken to not caring as a means of coping with what may create in many others a deep and palpable anxiety. ![]() Having recently left his job with a positive attitude toward change and a fresh start, it is jarring and contradictory to see that Toru’s attitude towards life is entirely passive and apathetic. In The Wind-Up Bird Chroniclewe are lost in the life of Toru Okada, a thirty-year-old suburban husband. ![]()
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