The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami

Chapter 8,
An Inquiry into the Nature of Pain / Creta Kano's Long Story

"As the body develops, the volume of pain increases proportionately."
If pain = unhappiness this is a good metaphor for what happens as a child becomes an adolescent.

"I endured the pain, I didn't complain to anyone. I strove to keep on smiling, I disciplined myself always to present an exterior of calm when the pain was so intense that I could hardly go on standing. Crying and complaining could not relieve the pain, it could only make me more miserable than ever. As a result of my efforts people loved me. They saw me as a quiet good-natured girl." The metaphor can be continued, people (adults) don't want to be bothered with the pain of adolescence. But, there is something else going on now.

"... people loved me" because of the facade I put on, because I was not a burden. So the statement becomes more universal--not just about adolescence but about how/why people love in general.

"I might have had a perfect life if it hadn't been for the pain. But is was always there. It was like any shadow. If I forgot about it for one instance, the pain would attack another part of my body." First, irony here--If my life had been perfect (painless), my life would have been perfect. But, again, something else--she is always reminded that her (everyone's) life is not perfect.

This is like reading poetry, stuff happening on several levels.

I have a bad habit of taking things at face value, so I never even considered this comparison. I can definitely see the similarities to adolescence... I think part of being a teen is having all this angst and being told by society that your feelings are irrelevant and no one wants to hear about it. As one matures, I think most people learn to not share their deeper emotions, constructing that facade Creta refers to.

There is a lot in this book that works best if it is taken litteraly. I think the ending reinforces that. It definitly is not moderism where you must look for the metaphor behind almost every word. Of course, I could be very wrong. I have only read the book once and there is a lot to digest.

Oh, well said - as a teen, I found that too - that nobody really wants to hear about pain, either physical or emotional.

My father always put down any references I made to feelings. My mother always assumed that 'cause she was a grownup, she knew everything so had nothing to learn.

She never really thought about how people really felt. Talked about people a lot, the things they did, the things they said - what she thought was right and wrong. But never really got into the person's feelings about it all.

When my father went through heart surgery, he had an awful time. His chest collapsed on the operating table, his stitches broke in intensive care. Through the whole thing she was worried, if course, but what was coming out of her mostly was her own feelings.

'Oh, this is so hard on me, you know', she would tell people.

I think a lack of empathy is at the core of many problems in the world. Definitely in this book, Toru is learning to consider things from other peoples point of view. Especially Kumiko's.

In what way? In his role as a 'housewife'? I don't really see him gaining any insight into the way she really feels. Unless this comes in further on in the book.

I'm at the part where Gooshie is trying to get him to set up computer communication so he can talk to her.

Not in his role as a housewife - Kumiko was never that. But in that he has been put in a situation where he must learn to understand how others feel if he wants to resolve it.