The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel (Vintage International)

I mean, the world’s full of things we can’t explain, and somebody’s got to fill that vacuum. Better to have somebody who isn’t boring than somebody who is. Right? Like Mr. Honda, for example.”

Something trivial got me started, just as most important things in the world have small beginnings.

The yard of this house was very large. It had a broad, sloping lawn dotted with clumps of trees. To the left of the deck chairs was a rather large concrete-lined pond, its empty bottom exposed to the sun. Judging from its greenish tinge, it had been without water for some time. We sat with our backs to the house, which was visible through a screen

When you don’t have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out—so far out you can’t follow them all the way to the end.”

But as is so often the case with men who have made it like this, he was arrogant and self-righteous.

Weird. Food one minute, garbage the next.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m the only one here. The two

I felt empty: no furniture, no curtains, no rugs. Just an empty container.

Bird