Book 1 Chapter 1: Tuesday's Wind-Up Bird ● Six Fingers and Four Breasts (Pgs. 1-23). Summary

The novel opens one Tuesday in June in 1984 with a ringing telephone and the main protagonist (and chapter narrator), Toru Okada, cooking spaghetti at half-past ten in the morning. When Toru Okada answers the phone, a woman on the other end of the line suggestively tells him that ten minutes is all they will need to understand each other's feelings. Toru Okada first meets May Kasahara.

Book 1 Chapter 1: Tuesday's Wind-Up Bird ● Six Fingers and Four Breasts (Pgs. 1-23). Analysis

This chapter introduces the reader to the main protagonist and his wife. It also brings the mysterious nature of the cat's disappearance into the characters' field of vision. Noboru Wataya the cat vanishes before the novel begins. This fact conveniently foreshadows numerous...