村上 春樹

Crónica del pájaro que da cuerda al mundo (ねじまき鳥クロニクル Nejimaki-dori Kuronikuru) es una novela del escritor japonés Haruki Murakami publicada el 1994 en Japón en su versión original en japonés.

Trama argumental

La novela cuenta la historia de Tooru Okada quien después de dejar voluntariamente el bufete de abogados donde trabajaba, y después de que el gato que cuida junto con su esposa de nombre Kumiko (llamado Noboru Wataya, igual que su cuñado) se haya escapado de casa. A partir de entonces recibe una llamada que marcaría el comienzo de situaciones cada vez más extrañas, relacionándose con personajes extravagantes, lo que provoca una sensación de realidad y fantasía difícilmente dilucidada , rasgo que caracteriza la obra del autor. Como por ejemplo al introducirse el protagonista (Tooru Okada) en la profundidad de un pozo de una casa abandonada, donde existe una estatua de un pájaro de piedra mirando hacia el cielo con las alas extendidas o aquellas situaciones soñadas que se fugarían a la realidad. Kumiko desaparece una mañana, sin rastro alguno, sin embargo, Tooru Okada no se muestra convencido de las razones que más tarde Kumiko le haría llegar a través de su hermano Noboru Wataya y posteriormente por una carta contundente de la existencia de otro hombre. Tooru Okada percibe un mensaje oculto de Kumiko, donde ella le pide ser salvada, no de una forma física, sino mental.
La novela se divide en dos partes imaginarias, la primera donde todos aquellos sucesos que vendrían a futuro son manifestados, pero no son asimilados por Tooru Okada, ya que siempre ha sido una persona escéptica. La segunda parte comienza con la salida de una mancha azul en el rostro de Tooru Okada, representando como la comunicación entre la otra dimensión y esta, siendo su punto de partida para creer en «otra dimensión».
Tooru Okada conoce personajes sumamente extraños y que tienen gran influencia en su vida, como May Kasahara, Creta Kanoo y Malta Kanoo. Éstas últimas con personalidades extrañas e incluso paranormales, teniendo la posibilidad de llegar a su mente e interpretar cosas a futuro.
La novela acuña su nombre ya que el matrimonio Okada bautiza a un pájaro (nunca visto a sus ojos) que se posa a los alrededores por las mañanas haciendo un ric-ric, tal como si esto accionara el sistema que mantiene al mundo funcionando.
La novela tiene una longitud un tanto extensa (unas 900 páginas), que permite al lector ir adentrándose en un mundo donde la realidad se encuentra con la fantasía, siendo ésta parte de la misma. Es considerada por el autor su obra más acabada.

---

Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹 Murakami Haruki^?, born January 12, 1949) is a contemporary Japanese writer. Murakami has been translated into 50 languages^[1] and his best-selling books have sold millions^[2] of copies.

His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered critical acclaim and numerous awards, both in Japan and internationally, including theWorld Fantasy Award (2006) and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (2006), while his oeuvre received among others the Franz Kafka Prize (2006) and the Jerusalem Prize (2009). Murakami's most notable works include A Wild Sheep Chase (1982),Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-1995), Kafka on the Shore (2002), and 1Q84 (2009–2010). He has also translated a number of English works into Japanese, from Raymond Carver to J. D. Salinger.

Murakami's fiction, often criticized by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, was influenced by Western writers from Chandlerto Vonnegut by way of Brautigan. It is frequently surrealistic and melancholic or fatalistic, marked by a Kafkaesque rendition of the "recurrent themes of alienation and loneliness"^[3] he weaves into his narratives. He is also considered an important figure in postmodern literature. Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his works and achievements.^[4]

Murakami began writing fiction when he was 29.^[18] "Before that", he said, "I didn't write anything. I was just one of those ordinary people. I was running a jazz club, and I didn't create anything at all."^[19] He was inspired to write his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing (1979), while watching a baseball game.^[20] In 1978, Murakami was in Jingu Stadium watching a game between the Yakult Swallows and the Hiroshima Carp when Dave Hilton, an American, came to bat. According to an oft-repeated story, in the instant that Hilton hit a double, Murakami suddenly realized that he could write a novel.^[21] He went home and began writing that night. Murakami worked on Hear the Wind Sing for several months in very brief stretches after working days at the bar. He completed the novel and sent it to the only literary contest that would accept a work of that length, winning first prize.

Murakami's initial success with Hear the Wind Sing encouraged him to continue writing. A year later, he published a sequel, Pinball, 1973. In 1982, he published A Wild Sheep Chase, a critical success. Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 1973, and A Wild Sheep Chase form the Trilogy of the Rat (a sequel, Dance, Dance, Dance, was written later but is not considered part of the series), centered on the same unnamed narrator and his friend, "the Rat." The first two novels are unpublished in English translation outside of Japan, where an English edition, translated by Alfred Birnbaum with extensive notes, was published by Kodansha as part of a series intended for Japanese students of English. Murakami considers his first two novels to be "weak",^{[citation needed]} and has not been eager to have them translated into English.^[22] A Wild Sheep Chase, he says, was "the first book where I could feel a kind of sensation, the joy of telling a story. When you read a good story, you just keep reading. When I write a good story, I just keep writing."

After receiving the Gunzo Award for his 1979 literary work Hear the Wind Sing, Murakami did not aspire to meet other writers. Aside from Princeton’s Mary Morris who he briefly mentions in his memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, alongside Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison, Murakami was never a part of a community of writers, his reason being that he was a loner and was never fond of groups, schools, and literary circles. When working on a book, Murakami states that he relies on his wife, who is always his first reader. While he never acquainted himself with many writers, Murakami enjoyed the works of Ryu Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto.

Haruki Murakami is a fan of crime novels. During his high school days while living in Kobe, he would buy paperbacks from second hand book stores and learned to read English. The first book that he read in English was The Name is Archer, written by Ross Macdonald in 1955. Other writers he was interested in included Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Murakami also has a passion for listening to music, especially classical and jazz. When he was around the age of 14 he began to develop an interest in jazz. He would later open the Peter Cat, a coffeehouse and jazz bar. Murakami has said that music, like writing, is a mental journey. At one time he aspired to be a musician, but because he could not play instruments well he decided to become a writer instead.