Kiranjeet Kaur Gill: University student
A common condition
Despite the occasional grating Americanism (‘Girl, you’re crazy!’), the descriptive prose is elegantly written, full of beautiful descriptions, particularly of the natural world, which offer a stark contrast to Lin and Manna’s strictly regimented lives in the People’s Liberation Army.
Mothers, daughters and Jewishness
The mere fact mother and daughter ‘are’ Jewish leaves them open to persecution, which raises the question of whether there is such a thing as a specific Jewish identity.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The overlapping of Toru’s dreams and reality and the other characters’ frequent forays into the past add to Murakami’s portrayal of the world as fragmented and chaotic, yet the transitions between them are seamless and it is a testament to the author’s wonderful storytelling that he pulls it off so well.
