The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

This book was like reading a long dream, which vacillated between interesting and nightmarish stories with quirky characters.  The protagonist, Toru Okada, who calls himself The Wind Up Bird, quits his job and hangs out at home doing chores and waiting for his wife, Kumiko, to come home every night from her work. One day she does not return.  He sets out to find her and runs into a series of very odd characters ranging from Lieutenant Mamiya who serves in the Japanese Army during WW II witnessing some horrible atrocities such as the skinning of a live compatriot to Malta and Creta Kano, sisters who are clairvoyant and spend a lot of time listening to Toru's ruminations. In much of the book, I spent trying to figure out what is real, what is a symbol and what is pure fiction. It is a book about a young man finding himself and his strength of character after many years of aimless drifting (with periodic meditations at the bottom of a dry well).  The ending ties many of the complicated parallel stories together that revolve around Toru's life. I like weird endings so I particularly liked this book!