haruki murakami the wind up bird and tuesday's women

The two full-time waiters worked six days a week. Rather than a young crowd, the restaurant drew an older clientele that included some famous stage people and writers. The dining room had a calm, relaxed atmosphere without a hint of pushiness. It had many repeat customers, and they were never disappointed. It had been in business since the late sixties, and, although its cuisine was hardly leading edge, its high reputation was fully justified. Her workplace was one of the better-known Italian restaurants in the tony Roppongi district of Tokyo. He had not called her since the blowup, and she was not about to call him.

haruki murakami the wind up bird and tuesday

Something inside her had turned rock-hard and died. But it had taken an unexpected turn for the worse until it became a long and bitter shouting match-one bad enough, she was pretty sure, to have snapped their long-standing ties once and for all. They had been going together since high school, and the argument had started from nothing much. One reason was the terrible argument she had had a few days earlier with the boyfriend who was supposed to be with her that night. “I wasn’t going to do anything special anyway, even if it is my twentieth birthday.”Īnd in fact she was not all that disappointed. She found herself trying to comfort the sick girl, who had called to apologize.

But the other girl had aggravated a cold and gone to bed with unstoppable diarrhea and a fever of 104, so she ended up working after all on short notice. The other part-time girl had agreed to switch shifts with her as a matter of course: being screamed at by an angry chef while lugging pumpkin gnocchi and seafood fritto to customers’ tables was not a normal way to spend one’s twentieth birthday.

She always worked on Fridays, but if things had gone according to plan that particular Friday, she would have had the night off. Weaving together these stories - and their wide-ranging subject matter that includes break-ups, office-job monotony, strange wishes, and secret assassins - is a special endeavor of its own.She waited on tables as usual that day, her twentieth birthday. Földes’s first feature, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” takes its title from a Murakami collection and anthologizes a number of the author’s short stories - “Super Frog Saves Tokyo,” “Birthday Girl,” “Dabchick,” “The Wind-Up Bird & Tuesday’s Women,” “Blind Willow Sleeping Woman,” and “UFO in Kushiro” - to create an intimate and playful study of characters looking for meaning in their lives. His short stories are truly special, texts that are as dense as they are accessible, and filmmaker Pierre Földes knows this well. After inspiring two of the most stunning features in recent years with “ Burning” and “ Drive My Car,” it should come as no surprise that the work of author Haruki Murakami is ripe for adaptation.

Haruki murakami the wind up bird and tuesday's women