The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

I've had The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, for quite some time, but every time I'd consider reading it, I'd feel daunted, as I am really more a fan of realism than magic realism or surrealism in fiction. What made me finally give it a try was a beautiful Murakami passage quoted in a fine blog called alphabetical.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is a gigantic jigsaw puzzle whose pieces consist of episodes that deal with the unspeakable horrors of war, the reverberations of history in personal lives, the search for identity, the alienating forces of the modern world, among others. It is a tribute to Murakami that regardless of how many topics the writer juggles in this book, one comes away from it with a deep conviction that they are all meaningfully connected. And through all the surreal and magical episodes in the novel, one always has the sense that they're all rooted in reality or psychological truth--making Murakami a true metaphysical writer.

--Morx