003 4 A simple tale made memorable precisely by its simplicity , ' Norwegian wood ' narrates the saga of Toru Watanabe , an unassuming Japanese youth , who falls in love with his dead friend's girlfriend . The main theme of the book is Toru's patient wait for Naoko to fall in love with him and the sensitivity he shows in coming to terms with her broken psyche following the death of her beau . Along this seemingly unending wait for Naoko , Toru comes across Midori , a fellow student who adores him . A beautiful girl who likes getting drunk and watching dirty movies , Midori lights up the otherwise depressing book with her out-of-the-world antics . . . Its hard to not to smile when you read about this girl who , when drunk , likes climbing the roadside trees and falls asleep in the loo in the middle of the night ! Reiko's another intriguing character . . . she's Naoko's fellow inmate who , despite her personal trials and tribulations , tries to bring about the union of Toru and Naoko . In this seemingly simple love-story , Murakami has ensured that no character in the book seems out of place . . . in fact , it is a pleasant summation of all of them that makes Norwegian Wood eminently readable .
023 4 Norwegian Wood is my the first book by Murakami that I've read , and without a doubt it will not be the last . To be honest , I was a little skeptical after reading the first chapter , and almost let it go after this point , but a few days later I picked up Norwegian Wood again , and am very glad that I did . Murakami's exploration of human psychology and sexuality is brilliant and authentic , and although I have no way of comparing Norwegian Wood to his other works , I find it unfortunate that some are contending that this novel is too conventional and not up to par with his other works . Norwegian Wood is an excllent book in its own right .
040 4 This is first time for me to read one of mastarpieces written by Haruki Murakami . I'd heard rumor that said his Norwegian Wood was really something , but I always passed until one day I happened to pick them up in a book shop . The books tell me that every youth has unsteady mind which they can not control by themselves , though , they seem to live as if trying to ignore their complications which never ever relieve them . I like the way the auther carries on the story not exaggeratedly , rather simply , so the atmosphere gets to me directly . Anytime I read the book , I can imagine warm guitar sounds which Reiko plays . And the sounds slightly lightens dark and complicated atmosphere , like a tiny dandelion blooming in the rain .
055 4 Writing a review of this book is more difficult than dealing with how it made me feel , so I'll stay away from spelling out the entire plot and just say this : after reading it , allow yourself to be immobile . I needed time to think , to stare , to just breathe afterwards because it was so striking . Murakami's words create perfect pictures without becoming too descriptive , and the thoughts he pulls out of the reader tend to suck the energy out for a little while . While the story is simple in its most basic form , it is complex in the range of emotions the characters experience . It's one of those books you need to have on your shelf to read and reread again and again , and it's so moving that you'll probably want to share it with all your friends .
068 4 one of the few written works that have solicited tears , even days after finishing the novel . i speak for myself when i say this : norwegian wood was depressing as hell , but it was the greatest and most eloquently expressed account of young love that i've ever come across .
095 4 Norwegian Wood was translated by Jay Rubin . The people at Amazon often don't identify translators , but they should . Of Murakami's principal translators , Rubin and Philip Gabriel can be depended on to produce conscientious , elegant English versions without taking unjustifiable liberties with the text . If you enjoy a book you're reading in translation , you can thank the translator as much as the author .
109 4 I read this book in Chinese . Basically , it is Murakami's most famous work with a sensitive and light description of its character . A not clear plot but draws you into a wondered world . If you read his other works , like wind-up bird , you will feel a little strange or hard to follow . For this book , it will be a different story . It is a simple story with Murakami's way of writing . It will lead you into the real Murakami's world . If you like his work , it is a most . Also , if you like Norwegian wood , I will suggest that his new book Spuntik sweetheart will become pretty impressive to you . From some perspectives , Norwegian wood is 1980 ' s Murakami . Then , Spuntik Sweetheart is 1990 ' s Murakami . Norwegian Wood is written when he was in European . Spuntik Sweetheart is written in his home country Japan . What is the difference ? You better find out yourself .
133 4 _ Norwegian Wood _ is not typical Murakami - - no weird sub-plots , mysterious aniamls etc . It is nonetheless a good example of the bildungsroman genre and an interesting portrayal of student life in Japan in 1968 - 1970 , not all that different it turns out , from student life anywhere at that time period . The segment set at the sanatorium , while important to the plot , goes on a bit too long . The Tokyo-based scenes with Toru and Midori being more interesting and better developed . The ending , somewhat eliptical , is more typical of Murakami's work as are the many western cultural references , descriptions of food and its preparation and the sexual adventures of the main character . An interesting read .
146 4 If you think Murakami can only write about the weird things in life , then be prepared to be shocked by this deceptively simple tale of young love in modern Japan . Similar in tone to the recent South of the Border , West of the Sun , though written many years earlier , this won't dazzle you with its invention , but Murakami's deadpan , heartfelt style fills the book with more feeling and heartbreak that amply makes up for its simplicity .
153 4 I read Norwegian Wood years ago when the English language version was first published in Japan , and even today I can't hear the Beatles song without drifting back into the nostalgia of this book . I hear the song and suddenly I'm on a plane thinking back on college days , and thinking of the pain and love of the tough relationship between the Toru and Naoko , the book's two main characters . I've read other books by Haruki Murakami since then , which I enjoyed , but none of them gripped me , or stuck with me , like Norwegian Wood .
010 4 This novel was a huge depature from Murakami's other work . Unlike his other works , which are chalk full of evil sheep , unicorns , wind up birds , and the end of the world , Norwegian Wood is a fairly straight forward coming of age love story . But the relativly simplistic plot of this novel betrays a very complex underworking that is just as good , if not better , then the other , more playful and bizarre , books . In terms of actual style , I couldn't help but liken it to a mixture of The Great Gatasby and Catcher in the Rye ( bot of which are alluded too many times in the course of Norwegian Wood ) . Unlike the other Murakami's , which I feel have an almost emotional void to them ( which I love , don't get me wrong . . . ) , this one was almost painfully emotional . Loce , loss , hardship , happiness ; Murakami touches on all of them . And Toru Watanabe is not the average Murakami Hero . AGain , he is more emotional , less detached then the others . The reader knows him far better than any of the other protagonists in the other novels . You feel for him . You understand the basis of his pain . It's really a powerful novel . Any Murakami fan that hasn't yet read this , must get to it as soon as poissible . Don't overlook it because it appears to be mainstream ( which it really isn't ) . However . . . if you are looking for a Murakami book to start with , I really can't recommend this one , simply because it is so much more different than the other books . Try the Wind-up Chronicle or A Wild Sheep Chase . And have fun . Reading Murakami for the first time is on e of the greatest experiences you can have .
006 4 How should I start . I first read this book 7 years ago in its Chinese translation . But after reading this newly published version it all came back to me . All the sad feelings and the helplessness . This book is just too wonderful it's beyond description . And I can't help falling into the roles in the story while listening to the Beatles ' Norwegian Wood . You have to get your hand on this book ( preferably the Biritish versionto feel it for yourself . I agree with one of the reviews here this book do feel like J.D . Salinger Catcher in the Rye . Murakami sort of admitted it himself by writing a line mentioning the book . But Norwegian Wood is so powerful in its own way bewteen life and dead ; love and hate . This book is a lot more than its protracted images of a love story of a Tokyo college student , although it's more of a guy's romance . Its odd sex patterns and almost frequent suicides mark the authenticity of Japanese culture while strongly persevere the usual influence of American literature and culture in Murakami's works . Maybe it has something to do with Murakami being born in Kobe , a wide-open trading port where Western cultures were available in the early 1900s . Anyway , the reason I am writing this review ( at 3 : 30 a.m . ) is that I just can't fall asleep after reading it , even it's the second time in 7 years .
019 4 In number9dream , David Mitchell as much as admits that Norwegian Wood was the inspiration for his novel . I can see why . This postmodern coming-of-age novel is probably the most powerful and elegantly told novel of its kind short of The Catcher in the Rye . Major themes include death , isolation , and absence , but also devotion and love . It may be just a love story as some complain , but it is the most interesting and fascinating love story and coming of age story I have ever read . I love this book .
038 4 True , the earlier translation by Birnbuam was very good . A kind of lie is being generated by the media and the publisher . In fact , Norwegian Wood , which is by far Murakami's best work ever , and a milestone in Japanese literature , was translated into English before and attracted many fans . Me , too . But the publisher decided that releasing WOOD in the early 1990s would not be good for Murakami's career in the US , ( read : reviews and sales ) , because they wanted to develop his image first with his other books . Which they did . But it is not true to say the Haruki didn't authorize a translation before or that there was legal action problems . No , it was a pure marketing move by the editors in Japan and New York , and it was dishonest . Fans have been waiting for years for this book , and it is a real crime to have kept the book back under the pretense of publishing poppycock . That said , let Murakami someday tell the truth in an interview ( he will , he will ) ; meanwhile , read the book . It is by far the greatest piece of Japanese literature in the last 50 years and if you really want to understand the Japan that is today Japan , read this book . . . and weep . Murakami got it right . His publishers should confess to the public and stop this marketing PR spin . Give us a break , Haruki ! So , yes , five stars , ten stars , this book will go down in history as Murakami's best !
051 4 Norwegian Wood is easily the best thing Haruki Murakami has ever written . It is so beautiful and poetic , so rich in emotions and realism , so touching and so haunting . The story of a man choosing between a love of his past and a love of his future , Norwegian Wood carries a tremendous wave of emotions in such subtle and simple prose . That is the gift of Murakami ; the music of his words . Beautiful and rich , his novels are always exercises in minimalist literature - Norwegian Wood is no different . Each passage in the novel trembles with symbolic possibility , adding to the emotions already stirred by his characters , who are , as constructed by Murakami , afloat in a world devoid of a point or purpose . They live with death , with loss and with idiosyncratic problems ; they must also , however , live in a world crazier than themselves . It is established in the novel that a mental rest home is saner than the outside world . Perhaps the best way to describe this novel is as a bleak , tragic love story mixed with black comedy . For its entirety it travels smoothly and easily , becoming increasingly more intriguing and compelling , right up until the devastating denouement .
054 4 Norwegian Wood is the novel which catapulted Haruki Murakami to national fame in Japan . The two volumes of the original edition - one in red , the other in green - were an essential must-have accessory of Japanese teenage girls . They took whichever volume fitted best with their dresses along to school . The appeal to female readership is no accident . Norwegian Wood is essentially a love story where a young undergraduate college student , the narrator of the novel , has to choose between two girls . Both girls are scarred , though in different degrees , by tragic events , and both experience the emotional helter-skelter of adolescence . They feel confused , sad , lost , alienated , helpless , bored , angry , empty , out-of synch , and most of all , they are trying to make sense of it all .
What makes this novel special is the compassionate distance of Toru Watanabe , the narrator . Murakami has a unique talent of depicting emotions in a restrained manner which brings out the humane core in the often odd and unusual behavior of his characters . And he does not intrude upon the world of his protagonist : implausible and invented as it is , the story appears realistic and coherent . Murakami , unlike other Japanese authors , likes to include Western culture in his works . One example of this is his use of Western novels in the construction of Norwegian Wood . Toru Watanabe , the narrator , is modeled in many ways on Jerome D . Salinger's Catcher in the Rye , his college friend Nagasawa resembles the Great Gatsby , and part of the novel is set in a sanatorium which hints at Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain .
If you want to get a feel of the original edition , you may want to buy the paperback version published in Great Britain from amazon.co.uk which comes in two small volumes ( red / green ) in a box . Unfortunately , the books were printed in China and the binding seems to be of poor quality : the first 30 pages of volume one came loose from the spine when I read the book .
Haruki Murakami is one of the most interesting authors I have read this year , and Norwegian Wood gives only a limited impression of his abilities . For a more comprehensive experience , which I do recommend , I suggest his collection of short stories The Elephant Vanishes .
056 4 I nearly had read most of Murakaml's books and I would say his best are the Norwegian Wood and the Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World . In Norwegian Wood , here is a love story which is so realistic that the readers can identify themselves into the characters . Murakami's descriptions of ordinary people's life and together with their philosophical thoughts and conversations made it an unforgettabe journey into the sorrow and helpless of existence .
078 4 I'm not going to say anything that has already been said , but this is a novel of the highest quality . In my opinion , it equals or tops one of my favorite , Catcher in the Rye .
* * interesting tidbit : Taiwanese rocker Wu Bai and his band China Blue recorded an excellent song called Norwegian Wood , inspired by the novel . This is interesting to me because the entire story was triggered by Watanabe hearing a certain song .
082 4 Norwegian Wood is a wonderfully complicated romantic story . In it the reader is shown the inner-most thoughts of the characters . This novel presents us with and helps us to better understant the different types of love a person can possess for another as well as showing how we deal with the loss of a loved one . This is not your average fairy-tale romance novel , but an honest and sincere representation of the love a young man feels for those around him and what he does to cope with these feelings .
086 4 although i am an avid fan of murakami's work , this book moved me much more than his other books . very few books i have ever read affected my emotions as much . i read small chunks at a time in order to make the story last longer in my mind and prolong the inevitable ending .
088 4 While not as complex and creepy as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle , Norwegian Wood is far more affecting , and set me off on a Murakami kick . Although some seem to dismiss the book as a simple love story , Murakami's penetrating eye raises it above potboiler status . Toru's travails are ultimately universal , despite the iconoclastic story-telling , replete with Murakami's usual quirks . The greatest thing about the book , I think , is the gentleness of it , the silence . Even though it is chock-full of Western references ( beginning with the title ) , the book has the simplicity and inevitable quality of a Japanese brush painting . And it only took fifteen years for an authorized English translation . . .
094 4 Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is one of a long list of books on disillusioned youths looking for some purpose in their rather directionless lives . I wish I can say this book is a Japanese equivalent to A Catcher in the Rye . The author tries , tries very hard . But in the end I was disappointed .
The story is set in the late 1960s Tokyo . It tells the story of a lonesome , can't quite fit in young male college student and his relationship with friends and lovers , most of whom are equally disillusioned with life . His female companions are especially depressed , achingly so . . . . and that's it ! I wish I can say the story yields something particularly insightly or moves in a forward direction . Maybe it does for some . I found it to be a constant recycling of depressing conversation and , embarassingly , discussions of sexual relations to extruciating detail .
Having said all this , I am still a fan of Murakami . His The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a masterpiece . I only wish Norwegian Wood was as daring and original .
Bottom line : a heartfelt but ultimately tame and derivative look at the sadness and loneliness of youth .
100 4 I am a huge Murakami fan , having read Wind-Up Bird , Kafka , After Dark and other works . Maybe it's because I became so enthralled by his unreality that the realism of Norwegian Wood did not captivate me the way his other works have . But that is not to say that this novel is in any way disappointing . As always , it contains the delicate , pensive and musical prose that defines Murakami .
107 4 Murakami writes with a gently undulating pace that quiets the nerves and soothes the soul . His writing reminds me a little of Hemmingway in the way he can describe a simple act , like eating lunch , and make it poetry . The way his protagonists seem detached from the rest of the world is reminiscient of the existentialist types like Camus's Stranger . The difference is that underlying the detachment is an understated emotional warmth and gentleness . This is more true in Norwegian Wood than Hurakami's other novels . This one lacks the intense surreal quality of Wind Up Bird Chronicles or Sheep Chase and is a true love story . I read it in a few days and was totally absorbed .
108 4 Like a crow flitting from one power line to another , Murakami moves the story from one situation to another in sudden movements , oftentimes leaving me with a feeling of disorientation . Likewise , many times the description of the setting seems forced and contrived , at least at the outset of the story .
In the end , the story and the writing satisfy . While not quite as hard-hitting and insightful as South of the Border , the story that Norwegian Wood tells is a familiar tale of overlapping loyalties and the dichotomy of purest love and realistic , dirty , wart-covered love .
Like the beautiful morning fog , youth and dreams give way to a maturity that is warmer and more exciting than the cool stillness of the morning .
128 4 Murakami's Norwegian Wood seems like another Catcher in the Rye without any traces of annoying repetitiveness of themes . Watanabe , the protagonist of the novel , has already become a figure to emulate in some respects . . .
131 4 I can't really add more than the other reviewers here have already done but this is a delightful Murakami book . It's happy and uplifting but is not exactly a straight love story . This IS Haruki Murakami after all and it does have it's share of the surreal and bizarre but not as much as in some of his works such as Wind Up Bird . IF Murakami could ever tell a straight story then this may be as close as he's going to get . My wife , who has never read a Murakami novel , asked if I haven't yet gotten tired of the pattern or template of this author or haven't I figured out his formula yet . The answer is there is no pattern . He just spins tale after tale with bizarre elements without pattern or formula . Add Norwegian Wood to this random mix of storytelling . It's a highly recommended great read !
138 4 Murakami's oevre is a constellation of brilliant superstars ( Wind-Up Bird ) , and tiny , equally brilliant gems ( South of the border ) . Norwegian Wood is a stunning addition to this multivariant galaxy . What a gorgeous book ! All I can say is - - Haruki Murakami is a wordsmith , a magician , and a counselor all wrapped up in one . Like the great haiku poets , Murakami finds the extraordinary in the most ordinary of lives , people , and events .
145 4 Norwegian Wood was the jumpstart to my Murakami fever . It is at once elegant , plain , complex , lonely , and beautiful . A masterpiece .
154 4 This poetic , earlier novel by Murakami is also his most stark , humorous and romantic work . It is only a shame this book is out of print and likewise very hard to attain . Containing some of his most memorable lines and characters , this highly allegorical novel take hold in the heart much like a love would , tracing the development of one of the author's most fully realized character through his college years . Haunting , profound and more romanctic than his other work , this novel , not unlike the Beatles song of the same name , demands attention and thought - it is truly a beautiful and rare work .
046 4 I have lived in Japan for nearly a decade , during which time I have read dozens of books ON Japan but very little Japanese Literature . The main reason was that having encountered many incidents of shoddy translation I was waiting to read Japanese Literature in Japanese . Unknowing of this wish , my girlfriend kindly sent me this Vintage edition translated by Jay Rubin and as both a ' courtesy ' to her and a way to understand her better I decided to give it a read . What I could not have imagined soon became crystal clear , firstly the translation is EXCELLENT , Rubin has done an outstanding job , and secondly , Murakami , as story teller of the first degree . Sure , this simple narrative is neither original or outstanding structurally , but it is in other numerous regards . Murakami's strength as a story-teller is his ability to suck you in and hold you there - front row seats all the way . As the plot unravels before your eyes you feel you know these characters he has drawn , that you know them far beyond the surface of which you have been told , that you know their inner core and their deepest hopes and fears . Because the writing is not unnecessarily uncomplicated , the pages just race by and this fluidity means you can finish this in three good sittings . All this leaves you feeling with a strange sense , of actually having know these characters - who could forget the lasting images of Storm-trooper , Midori et al . , and in the end , a sense of loss when the final page comes around . All in all , an excellent novel and one worth reading whether you have an interest in Japan or not - actually that's an interesting disparity worth highlighting , the fact that people often read ' Asian ' literature because they have an interest in Asia , but seldom read American Literature because the have an interest in America . . . Finally as an addendum , it should be pointed out that the late ' 60s backdrop that this is ' supposedly ' set against , is no more than a piece of cloth hung from the ceiling to obscure the mess behind - this reads as absolute contemporary literature and with the exception of the odd ' Peace ' or ' Right-on ' it has no visible setting , nor leaves no particular after-taste .
120 4 this book takes you away and will not let you go until you read the very last page . i couldn't stop reading this book . absolutely loved this book .
149 4 This is an incredible novel , marking a departure for Haruki Murakami away from his more magically real settings and characters . In this book , Murakami writes a very vivid , realistic love memoir of Toru Watanabe , which you can read all about it the editorial reviews .
It is interesting to note that before writing this book , Murakami bought and read the collected works of Natsume Soseki , which was a huge influence on the style of the book ( Soseki is one of the only Japanese novelists that Murakami has read ) .
I would definitely give this novel 5 stars , but the translation is a bit sub-par and unnatural at times . If you can , I would DEFINTELY suggest reading Murakami in the original Japanese !
152 4 This book was fantastic . I recommend it to everyone who loves great prose .
066 4 Unlike Murakami's other novels ( e.g .
Hard-Boiled Wonderland
) , Norwegian Wood has no technobabble , no fantastical or supernatural elements . Without those frills , it's clear that Murakami is really an old-fashioned writer , and owes a lot to Kawabata and Soseki . Murakami's evocations of university life are reminiscent of
Sanshiro
( and his characters , like Soseki's , write letters constantly ) , and the very structure of his plot is identical to
Thousand Cranes
- - the first love is passionate but doomed , and the second love is sweet , but hampered by the protagonist's alienation . Of course , Murakami's story is purely about the angst of reasonably well-to-do teenagers , without the wartime lament lurking beneath the surface of Kawabata's opus . In order to make this seem less frivolous , Murakami makes his main characters noticeably less wealthy than their peers ( though still wealthy enough to enjoy their idleness ) , and adds a dark undertone in the form of a series of romantic suicides incidental to the plot .
But one still shouldn't quite take Murakami at his word . Even here , the story has a certain deliberate glamour . The protagonist claims to be just an ordinary guy , with no particular talents . But nearly every woman in the story throws herself at him sooner or later . All his problems are caused entirely by the difficulty of managing these women . No wonder the book was so popular with young people - - the protagonist's modest self-deprecation is so charismatic that it can be viewed as a kind of confidence . He suffers by sleeping with lots of girls , which is really not suffering at all . It is noteworthy that he never loses face a single time in the book . He always manages to keep his cool , his women are never able to embarrass him . The only time when he is vulnerable is in the very end , and there too his solitude is heroic rather than desperate . Real suffering is awkward , mundane , and ungainly , not cool and collected .
The protagonist's saving grace is that he really is charismatic . He doesn't whine , and he really does try to do right by at least some of his women . There are no villains in the book ( no analogue of Chikako from Thousand Cranes ) , all the characters are quite likeable , with the possible exception of the playboy Nagasawa ( but at least he repents eventually ) .
Murakami's name-dropping ( a constant in all his work ) is less irritating here than , say , in
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
. There's less of it , and Murakami makes an effort to connect his pop culture references to his storyline and characters . Like , instead of just mentioning
The Great Gatsby
once ( perhaps naming it as a good book for cooking pasta to ) , he will actually cite the contents of the book and bring up the novel multiple times in conversation . The titular Beatles song also has some relevance to the plot .
This is also Murakami's most erotic book . He writes about sex a lot , in every book of his that I've read , and it's usually not the high point of his writing . He's very explicit in this book , as well . For the most part , though , the explicit parts of Norwegian Wood don't seem vulgar and pointless , because they have a certain fresh-faced innocence . Midori is supposed to be sexually liberated , according to the back cover , but actually she doesn't come across as being any more liberated than Naoko , or any other female character in the novel . And , by today's standard , they all seem charmingly serious . It reminds me of
Shintaro Ishihara
, whose most decadent and experienced female characters are always trembling virgins deep down .
And anyway ,
The Lake
had a lot of perverse desire too , and even Murakami's one scene with gratuitous lesbian themes is probably just inspired by
Beauty and Sadness
. Murakami writes about it more than Kawabata , though . By the end , it feels like sex is the only way Murakami can imagine of depicting meaningful emotion or having his characters express themselves . Eventually , you notice that whenever his characters are supposed to have a true meeting of souls , he goes straight to the sex scene . In his defense , though , a young man like the protagonist probably would think like that in real life .
In the same way , the numerous romantic suicides eventually become an awkward plot device , because most of them occur with seemingly no reason . Murakami just isn't into the whole show , don't tell thing ; when he needs a side character like the protagonist's dead friend Kizuki , he gives you a brief synopsis of the character's personality , without bothering to bring it out in conversation , then skips to the catastrophic plot device . I understand that Kizuki is only important to the plot insofar as the other characters think about him , but still , I think the book could have used at least one scene with him talking to the protagonist , to illustrate why he might have felt so isolated . It would also have helped show the gradual change in Naoko . But maybe Murakami isn't interested in that . He's interested in documenting Naoko's changing feelings - - but only documenting them , not showing how they naturally emerge from a single personality .
In his other books , when Murakami doesn't know what to say , he spirals off into fantasy . Here , the realistic setting deprives him of the easy way out , and forces him to come up with personalities and characters . As a result , Norwegian Wood is his best book , and he never said anything interesting anywhere else that he didn't say here . For instance , The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle reuses many details from Norwegian Wood - - the inexplicable death of the wife's sister , the smart-mouthed but lonely secondary female character , even the warm mud metaphor - - and
Sputnik Sweetheart
is just a watered-down retelling of the exact same story . If you're wondering what Murakami is all about , you can safely limit yourself to Norwegian Wood .
001 4 I had read and enjoyed Haruki Murakami's tetralogy ( Hear the Wind Sing , Pinball , A Wild Sheep Chase , and Dance Dance Dance ) , and I loved his Wind-Up Bird Chronicle novel , but I was ready for something new .
In reviews and on websites , I had read over and over about Norwegian Wood , the straightforward novel that was published years ago in Japan , which still was not for sale in the states , since there was not an authorized translation available . This novel sold a HUGE number of copies in Japan . I was wondering : I love those other novels by Murakami . Are they so demanding ? Complicated ? If Norwegian Wood is so much simpler than the other novels , will I even like Norwegian Wood ?
The plot : It's the late 1960 ' s . College student Toru falls in love with the girlfriend of his ( dead ) best friend . She eventually becomes ill ( though not physically ill ) and has to leave to live under special circumstances , far away from him . While she's gone , he meets Midori , a college student who obviously is interested in him . But he's holding out for his girlfriend Naoko . Never knowing if she will recover from her ailment and be able to rejoin him in society , he goes to classes , sells phonograph records at night , and spends some time with Midori . He visits Naoko a few times , gets to know her wacky roommate / friend / mentor Reiki , and eventually he has to decide between a life with Naoko ( without Naoko ? ) or with Midori . Throw in a bizarre Geography-major roommate nicknamed Storm Trooper , a scene where Midori ( badly ) sings folk songs to our Toru while they watch a neighborhood fire from the balcony above her parents ' bookshop , and assorted other hilarious / bizarre characters and passages , and you've got vintage Haruki Murakami .
My favorite scene is one in which Midori takes Toru to visit her ill father in the hospital . He's so ill he can barely eat or speak , but Toru convinces Midori to enjoy a respite , and take a walk by herself out to a park in town . Toru is left alone with this bedridden stranger , in a situation that would seem forced , harsh , and impossible to enjoy , yet they make some very odd and touching inroads with each other . It's very unusual , and perfect in just the way that so many of Murakami's scenes seem to be .
The novel isn't as complex as Haruki's other work , and it's missing some of the magical realist / sci-fi / unexplainable elements that were so prevalent in Dance Dance Dance , Wild Sheep Chase , and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle . However , this novel is just as enjoyable , and just as worthwhile . This novel has a sustained emotional depth that other works by Murakami only achieve in passages .
If you're a fan of modern literature at all , do yourself a favor . Read Norwegian Wood , and read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle .
ken32
004 4 Murakami fans new and old rejoice and give your wallet and heart a break ! ! Norwegian Wood will be published for the US in the year 2000 . This is confirmed in interviews and by the office of Murakami . The month is unkown but wait a little longer for this wonderful , wonderful tale brought to you by a genius . If you don't own this book when it comes out you better have a good excuse on judgement day ! !
005 4 Upon picking up Murakami's Norwegian Wood , I wasn't sure if I would be crazy about it - - I've read most of his other works and enjoyed them greatly . I knew that Norwegian Wood deviated from his typical formula , and even included a non-divorced , 20 year-old narrator instead of the typical 37 year-old , single man . So I wasn't sure what to expect .
I was astounded by this book . Murakami does a superb job of capturing emotions and putting them into words . The character he introduces are beyond fleshed out , to the point where you feel as if you know them . The entire storyline is gripping , and will you leave you wishing the book wasn't only 300 pages .
It's difficult to describe the beauty of this book without desiring to quote passages , or even ask the reader to finish the entire book before discussing it's strengths . I highly suggest this book to anyone who has ever loved and felt powerful emotion . You will find a buoy in the ocean of feeling and be amazed at how absorbed you will become in Murakami's story .
Rating : 10 / 10
007 4 This is one of the more magical and sensual books that I've read this year . Toru Watanabe is a Tokyo student at the end of the sixties . Western culture abounds ( the novel is named after the Beatles ' tune ) . ' Norwegian Wood ' is Naoko's favourite song , and one that she pays her friend Reiko to play . It's a song that seems destined to torment her for the rest of her life . In his own subtle way , Murakami suggests to us the power of great art . This novel also belongs to that class . Once you've started to read ' Norwegian Wood ' , you'll become addicted to it . Murakami creates characters that reside in your mind as real beings . They're people who you will come to love . His fiction also transcends cultural barriers , in that ' Norwegian Wood ' could have been set anywhere . Its emotional centre is that of painful adolescence , so any casual reader will have a great deal to identify with the main protagonists from the off . Just as Toru is forced into the past by a single note of ' Norwegian Wood ' , this book will also compel you to confront your own past , the people that you have loved and maybe lost . The sixties student rebellions seem to have shook almost every part of the world , and Murakami's novel does feature such a revolt . No doubt the fuel blockades currently afflicting Britain and Europe will be similarly remembered in future years . In one revealing scene , Murakami has Midori articulate that great truth that when higher education chooses to debate the class struggle , it often does so in terms that exclude the working class ( note my indoctrinated and ironical use of ' articulate ' ) . Of course , I read a translation ( in the Harvill edition , presented like a box of Cubans , hand-rolled on the thighs of maidens ) , but the power of Murakami's prose shines through . Toru extols the exquisite prose of F . Scott Fitzgerald , and Murakami cannot have had a better writing tutor , where every word is a wonder in itself .
Naoko and Reiko have decided to exile themselves away from the mental torments of everyday life in a remote mountain community . Toru comes to visit Naoko , his sometime lover . Together , they share the memory of Kizuki , Noako's boyfriend , who inexplicably killed himself at the age of 17 . Naoko has far more difficulty expressing her feelings than Toru , something that he finds both beguiling and painful . Under the loving care of Reiko , Toru and Naoko try to explore their feelings for each other . What was the truth behind their night of shared passion ? Reiko believes that Toru may be the best tonic for Naoko ( such great irony ) , but Naoko has her own reasons for pushing Toru away , despite knowing how much she needs him . In one telling episode , Naoko reveals herself to Toru as she sleepwalks , a troubled soul reaching out for help .
Denied physical contact with the one woman he really cares about , Toru satisfies his bodily needs with a series of one night stands , out on the town in the company of his twisted but content friend Nagasawa . But even as his body is sated , Toru cannot help but feel disgust . However , his torment is tempered by Midori , who pushes her way into his life . She does not seem to mind that Toru is alienated , and far from content to be the Norm . She loves the peculiar way Toru talks and almost consults him as if he were a guru , demanding that he relate his carnal fantasies to her . Midori has been to an all-girl school , and seems to have an endless fascination for those pleasures that she has yet to experience . However , she too has her pain and a peculiar kind of madness . Inevitably , it seems , Toru is torn between his feelings for the inaccessible Naoko , and Midori's passion for him . . . Will Toru be forced down the path that has led so many of his friends to self-oblivion ?
' Norwegian Wood ' is a great , powerful novel . The kind of art that stays with you for the rest of your life , the kind of music which makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand tall , to force a shiver of delight and pain through your body , to make your mouth starch dry . There are excellent characters , from the lowly Storm Trooper , to the warm and loving Reiko . There is also great subtlety , surprising in such an emotional novel . This is , above all , a very sensual work of art , with every feeling touched upon and plucked with the greatest of skill .
008 4 This is the first book by Haruki Murakami I've read , and on the strength of this , I would certainly attempt his other novels . Norwegian Wood is a quick read , drawing the reader in closer and deeper as the characters , their lives , and their deaths intertwine .
Having just finished the book , I'm at a bit of a loss for what to say about it . It is about love , death , youth , friendship , and ultimately , how fragile and delicate humans are , and how much we seek protection from this fragility in the arms of others or in our own private prisons . Toru Watanabe , the protagonist , locks himself in a prison of solitude , which he eventually escapes , with difficulty , only through the death of a close friend / lover and the realization that he is basically alone in the world . This realization forces him to come to terms with his feelings for a woman who challenges his cold side while simultaneously acknowledging his softer side via her own need for companionship , understanding , and love .
There are many deaths in this book , although they take place somewhat at the outskirts of the other action . The deaths act as catalysts for characters to learn , grow , change , or in some cases , retreat , wither , and become isolated . It is this constant interplay between retreat and advancement , withering and growth , isolation and togetherness , which seems to be a theme of this novel , and a central struggle each and every one of its characters must face . In that respect , Murakami has hit on a central struggle for all humans : intimacy vs . independence .
It's Murakami's amazingly poetic writing , his evocative , sensual observations , and the way he renders characters so complex with the simplest of language and details that makes this novel so memorable . Another reviewer compared it to Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and while the content and themes are somewhat different , perhaps the lesson is that the elusive comfort zone , finding it and staying in it , is a major concern of and struggle for most people . There is always something ready to knock us off or out of that balance .
The ending of this novel doesn't suggest that Watanabe has found that balance or lost it . It really says nothing about how Watanabe resolves the current dynamics in his life . And perhaps that non-ending is just another reflection of the unbearable lightness of being , the strange place which we seem to inhabit only at times , when our expectations , needs , and actions all seem to magically work together at once . The normal state of affairs is that these things conspire to unbalance us , especially when we bring other people into the equation . Norwegian Wood expresses , in beautiful language , how the balance between people is so delicate , and how it sometimes takes a major catalyst , like death or loss , to jolt us into understanding our inter-connectedness .
009 4 What is it about these Japanese writers that are able to make prose sound like Poetry ? I am a fan of Banana Yoshimoto , another Japanese writer , whose book the Kitchen is one of my favorites . Norwegian Wood deals with the same life after ( the ) death ( of a close person ) issues and what it does to those left behind . However , whereas the Kitchen is a short , condensed book which brings on , alongside the feelings of grief and pain a very strong passion for life and all it has to offer , Norwegian Wood is a very long ( at least - it feels like very long ) tale with a lot of detailed inside reflection and thought .
I was not expecting this book to be what it is - a wonderful , dark piece of art . A heavy shadow clings to your heart while reading this story and the feeling of sadness and very deep sorrow is overwhelming and stays with you for a long time . I was therefore surprised to read that this book is described as an erotic love story . It is true that the book has many sex scenes , but the sex is so painful and so connected to the overall grave feeling of the book that it brings no comfort . Also , the words love story , seem - so I feel - to simplify this very complicated story .
Reading the translator's note at the end of the book I understand that the story has some autobiographical points , especially in the portrayal of a Japanese student life in the 70 years . For me however , this was a very personal inner account of a difficult time in a young man's life - a period that will leave its deep marks and in many ways will shape the man he is about to become . Norwegian Wood deals with questions of loyalty - to yourself , to the dead and the living and discusses the thin line between sanity and insanity . Most of all you are a participant to the hero's inner world - his feelings and the process of his falling in love - what he is drawn to and what captures his heart .
Highly recceomended .
011 4 If you ever find yourself in Japan , or at one of the Kinokuniya branches in New York or San Francisco , be sure to pick up a copy of Norwegian Wood , the runaway bestseller that made Haruki Murakami a superstar in Japan , now reasonably priced and available in the same attractive gold-boxed , two-part , red-and-green paperback volumes that Japanese schoolgirls supposedly used to carry to school every day , according to which volume coordinated with their outfits . It's hard to believe that this book was such a huge hit in Japan , given its intensely individualistic , introverted , isolated focus , which seems to clash so strongly with the collectivist Japanese orientation ; it's even harder to imagine this being a book read widely by schoolchildren , with its themes of drunkenness , promiscuity , infidelity , masturbation , lesbianism , child molestation , brain damage , mental illness , suicide , and death ( all made lighter , however , by humorous tales of college dorm life and canny references to pop songs from the 60 ' s ) . At any rate , this is definitely one of Murakami's best books , surpassed only by The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World ( in ambition , but not in quality of writing ) . Murakami fans will find themes from his other works in Norwegian Wood - - the theme of choosing a long-lost fantasy lover over a more realistic current partner from South of the Border , West of the Sun , or the theme of choosing to live in comfortable isolation or complicated reality from Wonderland , for example . The book that Norwegian Wood probably most resembles , though , is Wind-Up Bird , in its protagonist's prolonged , agonizing quest to come to terms with his past and secure a solid identity for himself . Norwegian Wood works in almost the opposite way from Wind-Up Bird , however - - whereas in Wind-Up Bird , the main character isolated himself in a fantasy world so he could reflect on how to recapture his real life , in Norwegian Wood , the main character tries to plod along in the real world , all the while idealizing a former fantasy life he still wants to keep real .
Norwegian Wood is almost impossible to get a hold of , but for fans who can manage to find it , it's a real treat and worth the effort .
012 4 This review is from :
Norwegian Wood ( Paperback )
It is amazing how a novel which is so fundamentally sad could somehow also be so redemptive . Sitting in an airplane and hearing an orchestra cover of a Beatles song , Toru Watanabe remembers clearly the first girl he ever loved .
_ Norwegian Wood _ is a book about suicide - - about a young man who has to choose between one girl longing to be with the dead and another girl who is trying to come back to life .
There is plenty of humor in the book , Midori is one of the most charming characters to be found in the modern novel . For all its sadness in its characters , the book is never really sad .
Going on my list to be given out as a gift for Christmas .
013 4 It is amazing how a novel which is so fundamentally sad could somehow also be so redemptive . Sitting in an airplane and hearing an orchestra cover of a Beatles song , Toru Watanabe remembers clearly the first girl he ever loved .
_ Norwegian Wood _ is a book about suicide - - about a young man who has to choose between one girl longing to be with the dead and another girl who is trying to come back to life .
There is plenty of humor in the book , Midori is one of the most charming characters to be found in the modern novel . For all its sadness in its characters , the book is never really sad .
Going on my list to be given out as a gift for Christmas .
014 4 You know a book is good when it sells so many copies it shocks the author into moving halfway across the world .
It's not the selling a whackload of copies , it's the fact that Murakami was appalled that the book he called an experiment became his most popular work .
If you've never read any of Murakami's novels before , then you won't understand how entirely - different - Norwegian Wood is from them . Murakami is a guy who writes about strange women with magic ears , men possessed by malevolent sheep , evil politicians with magical powers of defilement , teenagers who push their boyfriends off motorcycles , and cybernetic mind control . The last thing one would expect from him is a pure and simple love story , but here it is , and fortunately or unfortunately , it is one of his most intriguing and skillful works .
The story's pretty easy to understand , but the layers of meaning are not . Murakami's fascination with wells might zoom right over the heads of readers who are either unaccustomed to his narrative , or aren't paying attention to metaphor .
Essentially , Norwegian Wood ( yes , named after the song by the Beatles ) is a love story , but one with unexpected twists of fate , tragedy , comedy , and stuffed with melancholia . Murakami might not write a very convincing 20 - year old , but the slight over-maturity of the main character's voice can be ignored in favor of the insights he gives .
I wouldn't reccomend reading this book first if you're seriously interested in Murakami's works , it's not the best to represent his style . But if you aren't up for TV people or walking through walls , then read Norwegian Wood .
015 4 Written between Hard-Boiled Wonderland and Dance , Dance , Dance , Norwegian Wood is a very different sort of novel for Murakami .
Set in Tokyo and in a mountain sanatorium in the late sixties , it is , one suspects that this is a very autobiographical , Murakami's gentle protestations to the contrary notwithstanding . This is the story of a college student , Toru Watanabe , trying to find himself , to grow up , to make a commitment to someone , and to be true to that commitment .
The choice of the song Norwegian Wood as a title is appropriate , especially regarding the song's little known subtitle ( take a look at the Rubber Soul album and you'll see it ) , This bird has flown .
Watanabe once had ( and was had by ) two girls , one of whom is sliding slowly into complete mental disintegration , ( this would be the bird that has flown ) the other - feisty , independent , but as desperately lonely as Watanabe - lodging the claims of love , life , and a warm body against those of past pledges-pledges Watanabe views somewhat differently than the girl in question .
. . . First of all , this is an early effort-one would expect a bit of a shortfall in the sophistication department given Murakami's age when hr wrote it . More importantly , however , is the subject matter . This is a story of personal introspection about a romance-not about the alienation and anomie inherent to complex , inhumane , technocratic societies . Of course the elements of style Murakami would impose on these two radically different subjects is different .
At it's core , this is a tale of loss . Watanabe ends up losing his love in various ways and to various degrees throughout the book till she's finally totally gone in the end . The book is about how Watanabe copes with these various elements of loss .
I can understand why some fans of this author would find the book disconcerting as it is well outside the typical structure of a Murakami novel and the effects of this departure , given the extraordinarily distinct style Murakami normally utilizes , seem magnified over what would be expected from a more mainstream author . Don't let such comments dissuade you from reading this novel . I greatly admire Murakami's other work and liked this as well . It's a book that can be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone willing to accept it for what it is rahten than impose their own expectations on it .
016 4 I wanted to enjoy Norweigan Wood , and for the most part as I was reading it I really did get wrapped up in Toru Watanabe's romantic struggles with gloomy , flawed Naoko and the pretty , wild Midori . The setting was effective ( a Tokyo university in the late 1960 ' s ) , and the novel had a very real , contemporary feel that appealed equally well to Western audiences as well as Murakami's native Japan . However after finishing it I thought perhaps Murakami poured on the pathos a little too thickly for my liking , and so I am a little ambivalent about this book .
The book is narrated years after the fact by Watanabe , an introspective college student without much ambition , who disdains the hypocritical college radicals of his time and who befriends a quirky roommate , nicknamed Storm Trooper , who is a social misfit ( and the butt of jokes ) but who keeps their dorm room meticulously clean . We learn at the outset of a great loss , as Toru's young friend Kizuki unexpectedly killed himself at age 17 , leaving a huge void in the lives of both Toru and Naoko , Kizuki's longtime girlfriend . These two characters struggle with varying degrees of success to deal with the suicide , and develop a special kinship that seems doomed from the outset .
At the same time , Toru has a series of one night stands with a new buddy , a wealthy over-achiever who makes everything look easy , until Toru meets Midori , a breath of fresh air who says whatever is on her mind ( usually sexual in nature ) and who looks for the undivided attention and affection Toru is reluctant to give . All of this is well and good , but I think about half way through the novel gloom factor goes off the charts .
We learn that suicide has touched Naoko's family on top of her boyfriend's death , and if that wasn't enough Murakami makes another character's parents both either dead or in the process of dying of brain tumors . Come on , why not throw in some shocking car wrecks for good measure ! And all through these travails , we learn virtually nothing of Watanabe's past , even though he is our introspective narrator . It just seemed a little overboard to me , trying too hard to move the reader and seemingly impress upon the narrator the fleeting nature of our existence .
Overall I enjoyed the novel , and from the recent reviews posted , many of my fellow reviewers absolutely loved it . I just think sometimes the writer , a la John Irving , has a tendency to toss in too much tragedy for effect .
017 4 I'm a prolific reader , but I'm also extremely tough . I don't find many novels worthy of praise . This was one of them .
What struck me the most was the believability of the story . Perhaps this was because I identified deeply with Toru , with the mixture of feelings that come from isolation and the relief of being drawn out . I identified with Midori as well - with the sensuality that was banging inside of her , fighting to get out .
I actually just finished this book , and I read it rather quickly , so I can't give a more detailed analysis at this time . The book does have its flaws - Naoko's character was a little difficult for me to understand , perhaps because her relationships with her sister and Kizuki are not more fleshed out . Also , people hang themselves left and right . There is a great deal of death in this book .
Despite all that , the dominant feeling in Norwegian Wood is one of hope . This book made me hope .
018 4 I appreciate Murakami's wonderful ability to create such real characters , to whom you become so drawn to . At times , it's difficult to read Toru's real hope to set up house with his first love , but you can always feel that this will be an unrealised hope . Even those characters in Norwegian Wood that you never warm to ( and I think most can easily name one in this novel ) are necessary for the lessons that Toru learns throughout the novel .
Even though Norwegian Wood is a novel that looks at so many things like loss , unrequited love , relationships , there are many moments filled with humour , hope , and the promise of new beginnings .
Love the J . Rubin translation . Well done Mr Rubin !
020 4 Wow ! I was completely enchanted by this lyrical novel . The character development is outstanding and the mood really grabs you and gives the words a sense of depth and intense presence .
Toru Watanabe is a young man coming into his own and deciding how to live . He does choose to live though , when so many others around him are choosing to die . It is powerful to see his struggles to wind his spring as so much comes crashing down around him and he deals with the monotony of life .
He is torn between two loves , until Reiko shows him that it is wonderful to be able to love at all , it is a gift , and that he should not feel bad for loving two women . Naoko and he have a relationship on the edge of life and death which intoxicates him and draws him to her . Midori is an amazing character ( I absolutely loved her ! ) and so full of life that it helps keep him connected to the living world .
I especially enjoyed how sex was used in such creative ways . Sex was used to help us identify with the characters , to illuminate the difference between flesh and soul , to illustrate the frustrations of growing up , to form a friendship , to share passion , just to be alive !
This book did remind me of the Japanese version of The Catcher in the Rye , and Toru does read that novel quite often . There is just something about this book that transcends language and explanation . I loved this book and will definitely enjoy reading it again ! A must read !
021 4 Norwegian Wood tells the story of Toru , a 20 - ish University student living in Tokyo . Toru is devoted to Naoko , the girlfriend of his deceased best friend . Toru and Naoko find each other in Tokoyo a year or so after the death of their friend . They are both lonely , living in a big new city , trying to make a new start of a life tainted by loss . They need each other and on Naoko's birthday their emotional need turns to physical need and desire . Their happiness together is short lived , as Naoko's feelings of confusion drive her to check into a facility where Naoko is able to retreat further into herself .
Meanwhile , back in Tokyo Toru meets Midori . She cooks for him and becomes the friend he didn't have and the friend he desperatley needed . As the story continues Toru finds himself drawn more and more to Midori , yet he can't escape the loyalty and love he has for Naoko .
This is a story of finding yourself and what you need . It's a story of loyalty , of love , of guilt , of pleasure . The pleasure it gives to the reader is unavoidable , the language it uses is lovely and makes you feel each emotion Toru experiences as if it were you experiencing it .
Title after a Beatle song full of emotion , this book more than lives up to the high standard it's title gives .
024 4 A chance snatch of Beatles muzak heard in an aeroplane throws Toru back two decades , to the time when he was a student torn between two very different women .
One , Naoko , is the gentle , beautiful girlfriend of his best friend who previously committed suicide ; and the other , Midori , is an impulsive , slightly eccentric classmate who enjoys cooking and talking about sex .
Many opposite poles exert their power in this novel : the living and the dead ; the past and the present ; youth and maturity ; resilience and disintegration ; tender love and casual sex ; swinging 1960 ' s student Tokyo and the sequestered serenity of a health sanatorium in the mountains .
By the end of the novel , the narrator has taken the reader to the point where , like himself , one can no longer keep these elements separate from one another - life revolves around death , love exists through loneliness , and the past constantly imbues the present with all its hues and shadows .
This may smack of sombre profundity , but it is a novel that ultimately belongs to the optimistic resilience of the young and alive . The pathos is mixed with gentle humour .
If you are already familiar with the work of Murakami , I can just tell you that this novel has the same staggering brilliance of his other works ; and if you're new to his writing , well , I can't do justice to how good it is , so you'll just have to go and read it for yourself .
I in fact give this book six stars :
* * * * * *
( F , 26 )
025 4 For a story so simple and uncomplicated , I wonder why Norwegian wood continues to linger in my memory for so long . I read this book four months ago , amidst a book binge that covered about a dozen books . When all others have faded from my memory ( it was a binge after all ) , Norwegian Wood still visits my thoughts once in a while .
Maybe it is the most romantic book I have read in while . The writing and the translation are nothing short of elegant . Up until now , I am still in struggle to find the right words for it . Maybe it is so real , it enters my realm of reality , as if I know this people , this IS the story of someone I know .
Norwegian Wood was a great song even before I read this novel . Now it is unforgettable . It is a simple concept , take the lyrics of a song and build a novel around it . And , yet the execution is flawless . So much so that I can't get it out of my mind . Both the song and the book .
026 4 I was keeping this book for a friend from out of town who didn't want to carry it during his short trip after he bought it . I decided to take the advantage . It ended up like this : I wouldn't let the book down even when I was eating my breakfast . This is the first book I read from Murakami and I purely loved it . The sculpture of each character was deep and thorough with imaginable but moving trace of life . Every instance seems to push the reality to the edge with the right personality and the right condition , forcing the readers to fall for it uncontrollably . Besides being influential , it's also exposing the raw truth bravely . With characters being suicidal or even died at a young age , the book doesn't seem to be dark and depressing all the time , rather was lightened up once in a while by clues such as the faithful and pure love story of Toru and Midori , which ends the book with promise . The credit to Jay Rubin , the translator , could never be diminished . It never occurred to me during the whole reading that the book is merely a translation . The elegancy and fluency of its language throughout the book was just overwhelming .
027 4 Norwegian Wood is a coming of age tale set in Tokyo circa the 1960s . The main character Watanabe is a sensitive character , an admirer of F Scott Fitzgerald and a man of few words . After his best friend commits suicide , Watanabe forges a relationship with his best friend's girlfriend Naoko . Naoko , however , has psychological problems in part from the loss of her boyfriend and older sister . While Naoko attempts to recuperate at a remote clinic , Watanabe immerses himself in university life as he is drawn in by his colorful classmate Midori . Through Midori , Watanabe begins to break from his solitary existence .
This is the first Murakami novel I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it . The character of Midori is especially refreshing . The conversations between Watanabe and Midori are hilarious and touching . Midori's amorous feelings for Watanabe are evident from the start but Watanabe is too focused on Naoko to realize this . Meanwhile Naoko's struggle to overcome her depression makes for riveting drama . Naoko's roommate at the clinic , Reiko also adds some flavor to the story . Particularly evocative is the scene in which Reiko relates to Watanabe her experience with her piano student which bears directly on her psychological problems .
This novel captures the struggle of young adults perfectly . The characters always ring true .
028 4 i don't understand why murakami has been so reluctant for this work to be released in english . while it is on the surface a much simpler tale than wind up bird ( although there are springs ! ) , it's still poetic , beautifully sad and often quite profound .
toru , his japanese everyman , tries to be a good person and get through life with as little interaction as possible . unfortunately he's surrounded by death , which takes many terrible and beautiful forms .
murakami is always up to sly literary tricks : toru brings a copy of mann's magic mountain with him on his first visit to the otherworldly asylum where naoko is hospitalized . it takes quite some time before someone asks what he's reading , and her reaction is delightful .
my only ( tiny ) reservation would be that it lacks the feeling of open-endedness in conclusion - there aren't enough loose threads , something i've come to enjoy in murakami's work .
still , a splendid and deeply emotional work .
029 4 Now . . . I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories of imperfect thoughts . This is how Haruki Murakami , through the voice of his noble narrator Toru Watanabe , begins Norwegian Wood . It is a poignant beginning ; one that brings into question the factuality of all that follows , but not necessarily the feeling .
This is the second of Murakami's books that I've read . The first , A Wild Sheep's Chase lost me in its allegorical approach to the existential detective novel . Norwegian Wood , while a much more straightforward and accessible a narrative , is no less complex .
Although written in Japanese , you'd never know it . Jay Rubin's translation is seamless , capturing Murakami's easy dialogue effortlessly . The writing really shines through . As do Murakami's rhetorical techniques , which include using personal letters to get past what would be a lot of lengthy exposition . Usually I find this technique distasteful and lazy , but Murakami's letters are so skillfully economical and honest ( not to mention woven consistently into the narrative ) that I found it to be a rather effective technique . And his powers of language are staggering , so much so that he manages to make tired cliches seem robust . He even trumps the saccharine ' box of chocolates ' simile from Forrest Gump , coming up with an analogy of his own that is not only clever , but also relevant and original .
It also helps that for Western audiences , Murakami is unexpectedly accessible , as American music and American literature dominate his thoughts . This gives the novel ( like all of Murakami's novels , from what I understand ) an almost paradoxical feel for Western readers . I found myself skipping along , feeling as if the story was set in Berkley during the late 1960 ' s , but then every once and a while Japanese culture will jump up ; after a touch of vertigo , you realize just how transcultural the East has become .
Another of the novel's major themes , and definitely its most powerful , is the notion , often repeated , death exists , not as the opposite but as a part of life . Watanabe appears to have the Midas touch ; only when he comes in contact with people , they don't turn to gold , they die . Sometimes it feels like Murakami is chronicling the genocide of a sensitive subculture of 1960 ' s Japanese youths . Fortunately , death is never exploited . Well , sometimes it's used as a device to jumpstart the narrative , but Murakami has such sensitivity in his writing that it never feels cheap .
Murakami's greatest feat is his spare recounting of college dormitory life . It's rendered realistically , providing a setting for much of Watanabe's ennui . He even notes at one point that college is nothing more than a period of training in techniques for dealing with boredom . Luckily , Watanabe gets a lot of mileage out of the people he meets in his dorm . A fastidious roommate , a lecherous friend , and others provide a menagerie of minor characters who revolve around the story's periphery , reflecting back at Watanabe certain aspects of his personality that he may not want to see .
In Watanabe , Murakami has created a terrifically grounded narrator . He is frank and plainspoken , to such an extreme degree that the people he knows keep commenting on it . He lacks pretension and ego , while constantly in a mode of observing . In many senses , he is a perfect narrator . Thankfully he fulfills that duty , because as a character you'd almost never notice him . He goes through periods where he's a cipher , and then through periods where his low-key charisma inexplicably attracts a number of beautiful , iconoclastic girls . It appears that you have to be tuned to a specific , underground radio station to really appreciate Watanabe . He's like a secret club that only attracts people who are kinda weird and twisted and drowning . I dug him .
The bulk of the novel is taken up with Watanabe's relationships with two of these weird and twisted characters .
Midori , a fellow student , is a whirlwind of unbridled curiosity and unchecked ego , especially when the topic is sex . She's also funny , charismatic , sad , immature , dramatic , passionate , and highly emotional . She challenges Watanabe , and is successful in bringing him out of his shell . I found myself rooting for Midori to be the one that Watanabe chooses for love ; but in the end Murakami makes you realize that love is not a voluntary thought , and that the choice is never that easy .
Instead , Watanabe is obsessed with Naoko , the girlfriend of his dead best friend . Their love affair is always tenuous , and kind of creepy in its necrophilia . Naoko is tortured and troubled and sad . It's hard to decide if she never really loves Watanabe , or is just incapable of love . Murakami never provides easy answers when dealing with her situation . In that way she becomes not only the most real but also the most frustrating character in the book . What does Watanabe see in her ? I'll never know , but I certainly recognize his reactions to a transcendent feeling .
Naoko also provides the book's title . She loves the Beatles ' song ' Norwegian Wood ' because it can make me feel so sad . I don't know , I guess I imagine myself wandering in a deep wood . I'm all alone and it's cold and dark , and nobody comes to save me . That's why Reiko never plays it unless I request it . Reiko , Naoko's roommate , in a typical moment of wit , comments that it Sounds like Casablanca ! This is typical Murakami : positioning gentle emotional epiphanies against modern , pop-culture obsessed observations . It's a style that certainly makes this book , on the surface morbid and forlorn , addictively readable .
030 4 What's it like to be a Japanese teenager ? What's it like to be be in love with your best friend's girlfriend ? What's it like to become , ever so briefly , a character from the mind of Murakami ? As gorgeous a writer as he is , this novel is not over the top , remaining sublime in its magic - preferring to remain in the realm of the ordinary and explore the mind of a confused boy tossed between conflicting emotions .
After reading Norwegian Wood I took a long walk with my dog and savored the experience of reading such an examination into the humanity that resides within the modern Japanese society emerging in the 1960 ' s . A lot of people believe that this story was autobiographical , but Murakami himself claims the entire tale to be fictional and the only autobiographical borrowing is the experience of living in a University Dorm Room in Tokyo . Despite that denial , I completely bought into the realism of motivation and action , believing this to be a story in which every piece fit together so perfectly because the plot is character driven and the characters are believable .
Toru Watanabe is a young college student whose best friend , Kizuki , committed suicide , leaving everyone behind to pick up the pieces . Kizuki's girlfriend , Naoko , struggles with her own tenuous grasp on sanity , choosing to admit herself into a specialized Sanitarium . Of course Toru is in love with Naoko and therein lies the central conflict - what does Toru do to fill the longing in his heart for a girl who is in love with her dead boyfriend and is falling apart because of it .
The sadness is palpable . The emotion wrenches from the reader , layer by layer , all of the defenses until the reader is raw and wrecked just like the characters . I love the way Murakami handles sex in his novels - not picture perfect and sensual in the ways of romances , but odd and awkward and loving and sometimes twisted , just like in real life .
I don't believe I'll ever get tired of Murakami novels .
- CV Rick
032 4 When a Japanese friend presented this book to me , implicitly urging me to read it , I was naturally skeptical . I don't pick up a book just because someone has recommended it . When I hesitated , she gave it back to me without a word . The simple , resolute force of her presence demanded that I read it . I started the book very grudgingly . Little did I know how deeply I would feel for this book when I was finished .
This is one of the very few books I wanted to reread immediately after finishing it . I simply did not want it to end . The book may be finished in one sense , but it still haunts me , just as Toru remembers Naoko .
The quality of Murakami's writing is so exquisite that it is the literary equivalent of making it look easy . Some reviewers have commented on the simplicity of the story , but there are so many layers of emotional complexity and genuine depth that the illusion of simplicity is truly deceptive .
When I learned what became of Naoko late in the book , I was so shocked that I had to put the book down for a while . While it may have been expected , Murakami reveals it so bluntly that it took all the wind out of my sails . His expert timing caught me at an especially vulnerable moment . By that time , I realized how closely I had bonded with these characters . I identified with these people as though they were my own college friends .
I was moved by this story in a way I've never felt from any other novel . I won't be able to listen to the Beatles ' Rubber Soul again without thinking of Naoko , Toru , Reiko , Midori , and everyone else .
I can't bear to part with Norwegian Wood , even though it belongs to someone else . I will patiently wait for the Japanese-style two-volume set of the same translation . . . .
033 4 This review is from :
Norwegian Wood ( Paperback )
I will not be able to do this book justice in this short review on Amazon . I will study this book for the rest of my life and place it among the greatest novels I have read . Norwegian Wood is simply magnificent . Strip away the awkward young love and the experimental erotica and what's left is a deep examination of the human heart . Haruki Murakami , although not an educated psychologist , is an extremely talented novelist . We are all amateur observers of the human condition and have experienced the love and pain created in our own relationships , Murakami merely writes it down for us to examine more closely .
Not all of us have experienced the darker side of emotional behavior when loss , leads to depression , which can lead to suicidal gestures , and which might ultimately lead to a terminal act . Here is a spoiler . There are four suicides in this book - - one by carbon monoxide asphyxiation , one through wrist laceration , and two by hanging . There are other deaths described as well . But this is not a morbid book . On the contrary Murakami goes to great measure to capture the beauty of life both in natural and physical state and in its more mystical shape of brotherly love and of course erotic love . He captures the beauty of human friendship and what happens when selfishness overrules better judgment , but ultimately that selflessness can prevail , in some cases it can save .
Murakami ` s philosophy , that . . . death exists as a part of life , permeates this book , but also that lives and experiences , even those that have been lost can continue to live . Norwegian Wood , the Beatle's song not the novel , evokes the memories of lives and loves worth remembering for the characters in this novel . We all have similar songs that remind us of those other experiences we have long since forgotten , good and bad . Murakami is simply reminding us that not only is it OK to remember , it is a fundamental requirement of the well lived and well considered life .
034 4 I will not be able to do this book justice in this short review on Amazon . I will study this book for the rest of my life and place it among the greatest novels I have read . Norwegian Wood is simply magnificent . Strip away the awkward young love and the experimental erotica and what's left is a deep examination of the human heart . Haruki Murakami , although not an educated psychologist , is an extremely talented novelist . We are all amateur observers of the human condition and have experienced the love and pain created in our own relationships , Murakami merely writes it down for us to examine more closely .
Not all of us have experienced the darker side of emotional behavior when loss , leads to depression , which can lead to suicidal gestures , and which might ultimately lead to a terminal act . Here is a spoiler . There are four suicides in this book - - one by carbon monoxide asphyxiation , one through wrist laceration , and two by hanging . There are other deaths described as well . But this is not a morbid book . On the contrary Murakami goes to great measure to capture the beauty of life both in natural and physical state and in its more mystical shape of brotherly love and of course erotic love . He captures the beauty of human friendship and what happens when selfishness overrules better judgment , but ultimately that selflessness can prevail , in some cases it can save .
Murakami ` s philosophy , that . . . death exists as a part of life , permeates this book , but also that lives and experiences , even those that have been lost can continue to live . Norwegian Wood , the Beatle's song not the novel , evokes the memories of lives and loves worth remembering for the characters in this novel . We all have similar songs that remind us of those other experiences we have long since forgotten , good and bad . Murakami is simply reminding us that not only is it OK to remember , it is a fundamental requirement of the well lived and well considered life .
035 4 I recently finished reading Rubin's translation of _ Noruwei no mori _ - - this time with my students for a modern Japanese literature course . Although I haven't gotten back from course evaluations from them , I am very confident that they enjoyed this novel . This is a great book to read in a reading group . Murakami's characters will have you loving or hating them . There is a lot to talk about with this novel . Certainly it must be one of Murakami's most accessible novels . No strange happenings here and the characters , like Americans , tend to reference things in their lives to American pop songs , novels , etc . It might be fair to call this book The Great American Novel Not Written by an American . At the same time , the book tells us a lot about Japan , an alternate view , as it were of the 60s from the point of view of someone sitting un-popularly not on the hard left .
A final note about the translation . It is wonderful . Although I sometimes hear that Rubin has some detractors out there , for me ( and I think for most of my students who finished reading the novel in less than a week ) , his prose just purrs . I positively love the way he handles porting the humor into English . There were many , many times that I laughed out loud - - even though I've read the book before . It stands up . I know the book can be dark , but the balance is preserved here I think thanks to Rubin's skill .
036 4 In the 80s I was a young bookworm when the entire Japan was reading Norwegian Wood . I saw advertisement banners in trains , buses , everywhere in town , and of course in bookstores , but I was a twisted kid then that I refused to read it just because everybody was reading it , thinking people were just after a trend that would go away after a while .
Many years have passed without reading Murakami , and I now live in America , being told by Argentineans and Americans , that they like Murakami . After 12 years of not visiting Japan , I did visit Japan in 2004 and could no longer ignore Murakami's book because Norwegian Wood was still in every bookstore and even in train stations ! People in Latin America and Europe are also reading Murakami , and I would only look stupid if they can talk about Murakami and I , a Japanese person , have no idea what it is . Casual talks at parties with intellects became a proof of my ignorance . So finally I read the famous Norwegian Wood in the original Japanese language while visiting Japan .
I felt as if a huge hammer , as huge as a truck , hit my head at once . For years and years I was clinging to my own assumption of the silly pop writer , but now I cannot possibly deny the good quality of the writing when I finally read it . Work of Art was what I had to conclude .
I don't like the cover design of the English version . I like the original cover design when the book was published in 1987 in Japan .
037 4 This is my second Murakami book . The first was his Akutagawa prize winner from a while ago that did not leave enough of an impression to imprint the title in memory .
But now , this book is positively refreshing after trying to wade through the acclaimed Japanese literature of recent years ! Notice how simple and unassuming the prose is , contrary to other contemporary work that doesn't make it over here for good reason . Of course , this novel has accessibility going for it . Main character Toru Watanabe is practically immersed in Western imports : he is reading Magic Mountain , Conrad , Euripides , or Boris Vian , etc . with very scant reference to any Japanese work . Which makes it a relatively easy port to English and the translation loses little .
The main strength of the book I think is the atmosphere that it creates ; it is truly one of a kind , more rarefied in effect than Salinger to whom this book owes certain similarities ( Toru is likened to Holden at one point ) . It is a world where sex is narrated often but with cleanly wantonness , a world where time is stagnant and politics recede far to the background ( Midori's quip about Marxist-poseurs in a university is exquisite - also shows Toru's apoliticalness , unfortunately very common in Japan ) , and above all a world where men and women are disarmingly honest about life , sex , and how they truly feel . Now except for the last item , the mindset is not far removed from that of a young contemporary Japanese , like me , which explains the popularity . Many people in Japan condemn Murakami for writing fluff , but this is not true . Afterall , the core moral is stated in the very beginning of the book , that death is a part WITHIN life and not outside it ( curiously Japanese sentiment from a most un-Japanese writer - check Ivan Morris ' Nobility of Failure ) , and the book is his attempt to come to grip with this unconsoling truth . That , certainly , is not a trivial lesson to live with and you will live through it , all of it , from enervating boredom down to sexual agony , with Toru .
In conclusion , this book , then , is for readers who are willing to see their own life reflected in the somewhat distorted but wonderful mirror of Murakami's making . Afterall , isn't this the mark of a great novel ?
Oh , and to that reviewer who was so surprised by the unpuritanical ethics in a Japanese book : if reading anything by Tanizaki or the first few pages of Kawabata's Snow Country ( why is he sniffing that finger ? ) doesn't convince you , consider any chapter of the Genji , or the nastier love-letters in the Man-yo Shu ( the bit about the bag he will wear until next he sees her ) . The clincher is the story in Konjaku Monogatari about a man who masturbates with a suggestive looking vegetable and his daughter eats it and . . . well , you take it from there . Prudish ethics has never was a forte of good Japanese literature .
039 4 Why Murakami didn't allow a widespread English release of Alfred Birnbaum's translation is cause for some serious head scratching . Although Rubin does a more than adequate job ( his translation work was better in WIND-UP BIRD ) , he lacks the pacing and pitch-perfect understanding of language that was the hallmark of Birnbaum .
That said , Norwegian Wood is such a special book . Read it once and it will change your life .
041 4 I found that this book was hard to get into at first . I read about a chapter and a half and needed a break . Once I picked it up again , I was hooked .
Although on the surface this novel appears to be a simple coming of age tale , it goes much deeper than that . I found myself getting caught up in the creative way that Murakami uses setting to create tone and atmosphere in the story . The things going on in the background - the campus riots , dorm life , the sanitarium , etc . , aren't just there to fill up space . They're integral to creating the mood the author needs to get across his themes . And his themes are very complex - issues to do with the nature of love , life , and loss in modern society . This is a very disturbing book , with some imagery ( the sex scenes aren't thrown in here just to be titillating . In fact , the sex is some of the most disturbing I've read in serious fiction in a long time . But that's part of the point - he's showing how sex can actually be a means of creating distance rather closeness between people ) although there is an element of hope in the end .
I didn't like the use of the flashback technique in this book . The novel starts with Toru , the main character , as an adult reflecting back on his life at age 20ish . Other authors ( notably Wolff in Patterns of Childhood ) have used memory as a device to better effect than Murakami did here . He could just as easily have started the novel with Toru at 19 and skipped the first chapter . The book doesn't particularly deal well with mental illness or suicide , in that I didn't particularly gain a whole lot more insight into either of those two issues than I had prior to reading the book .
Having said that , the reason this book is so gripping and kept me reading to the end is that Murakami created characters I could invest in and relate to . I cared about these people , and I wanted to know what happened to them . Naoko wasn't quite as fully fleshed out as Toru , or even Midori , but I think that fit ; so much of she was was an image in Toru's mind . This novel is one where the use of the first person narrative was an brilliant choice on behalf of the author . It's vital to the story that everything is told from Toru's point of view . The dialogue is very good , too .
I can't compare this novel to any of the author's other work , as I haven't read any of it . I don't expect to rush out and read his other books , given how different they are purported to be compared to Norwegian Wood . I will say that if you are looking for a coming of age novel that still has appeal to those over the age of 25 , this book is a good choice .
042 4 Having read most of Murakami's other works before reading Norwegian Wood , I was pretty surprised to read a fairly simple , realistic romance . Although Murakami denies that this is autobiographical , one can't help but think that he based it somewhat on his own experiences . Despite the different mood of the book , I believe that it would be a mistake to consider this book unrelated to his other works , as character traits of Watanabe , Midori , and Co . are found in many of Murakami's other works . Midori's spunk and directness in particular can be glimpsed in a lot of Murakami's later characters .
As for the book itself . . . although Norwegian Wood is supposedly a love story , I had a hard time seeing tender or romantic qualities in our protagonist . Like many of Murakami's characters , Watanabe is at heart a realist , and a bit more selfish than the average Murakami Everyman . He has sex with pretty much every woman in the story so I had a hard time buying into his love for Naoko ( he seemed more focused on her sexual prowess than her mind anyway ) . I couldn't disagree with Nagasawa's drunken observation that Watanabe was like him in that he was incapable of truly loving anyone . Even when he declares that he can't do without Midori and never wants to be without her again , he goes and leaves her for a month after Naoko kills herself . He even sleeps with Naoko's middle-aged roommate , Reiko . Watanabe's ideals went out the window once he had a chance to take his pants off . When Naoko died , I found myself wondering if his sadness was because she died or because he lost a sexual outlet . I couldn't help but feel that Naoko's gentle beauty was lost on him . The older , wiser Watanabe that we start the book with seems to think along the same lines , but unfortunately , we lose his insight just a few pages into the book .
Norwegian Wood was an interesting read and likeable book , but not really the great literature Murakami's capable of . Norwegian Wood was written around the same time as Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen and I think it would be fair to make comparisons between the two . That's not meant to be a knock on either story . Murakami himself said he wanted to do something different in writing this book , which he certainly did . A good book , but probably not among Murakami's greatest .
044 4 It seems obligatory to begin a three-star review saying how much I enjoyed Haruki Murakami's other fiction . In truth , I liked the energy of the few short stories I've read but I picked up the novel because of its reputation in its own right .
In truth , I found much of the book bordering on dull and unreal . Early on , the main character befriends a guy simply because he's the only other person he's met who likes _ The Great Gatsby _ , but there's no comparison : _ Norwegian Wood _ is lifeless for long stretches , and some of the dialogue is actually monologues of psychobabble ( especially in the long , long chapter at the sanatorium ) . The characters weren't particularly engrossing , the plot was meandering . I didn't see why I should care about any of it . ( Thousands upon thousands of novels are published every year . I can only read the tiniest fraction of them . ) I couldn't figure out whether the problems were in the original novel or the translation .
The novel starts with a man in his thirties ( my age ) reflecting back upon his college years , which were made terribly painful and bittersweet by a love triangle ( or quadrangle if you include the haunting memory of a dead friend that binds two together ) . But the thing is , the novel doesn't feel like it takes place anywhere . The narrator seems almost entirely devoid of any historical awareness . As someone who is acutely aware of the differences between now and when I grew up , it boggles my mind that someone whose critical years were in the turmoil of the 1960s doesn't have more of a sense of distinctive vividness about that time . Except for some passing references to student protests , the novel feels like it could just have as easily been set anywhere else at any other time . The main time-specific references are the riot of Western 1960s music that runs through the novel , and the attitudes about sex are . . . distinct . As a result , the novel has a sketchy feel , which is not helped by the characters repeatedly defending themselves by the shock of tragedy by retreating into themselves and outwardly becoming apathetic . So reading the novel feels like drinking flat Coke .
Argument I : It's the fault of the author : the description doesn't even try to be rich . Attempts to appeal to the senses are few and far in between , and the description that is there feels random . This comes across as ` thinly veiled autobiography ' , to which you can normally apply slightly lower standards in that you accept a sense of veracity as compensation for less coherence . ( Life has so many odd and random bits . ) But this apparently isn't autobiographical . It's also noteworthy that the novel was written while the author was living in Europe , which could help explain the feel of having been written by someone who only read about the setting .
In short , the author is basically depending on the audience knowing what Japan was like in the 1960s without having to explain it . ( Similarly , would Jane Austen be so popular today if it weren't for the films based on her novels ? She likewise never describes anything of clothes , architecture , etc . , so we're dependent on outside information , which we get from Hollywood . )
Argument II : It's the translator's fault : the translation is so heavily laden with Western culture references that it seems insincere , so I decided to see if anyone had written about this translation . In fact , someone wrote an entire masters thesis on translating this novel . I didn't read the whole thing but what I read was revealing . Parts of the novel were actually first written in English than translated into Japanese . But more important , there have actually been two translations . When the novel swept through Japan shortly after publication , an translation came out for Japanese students of English . Apparently , it is dense with Japanese cultural references compared to the translation available now in the US . This suggests that what strikes me as a lack of vividness is an artifact of the translation , which bleached out what I as a reader needed . ( And I've seen some rather good Hong Kong and Korean movies that have ripped off important parts of the story , so the author's instincts seem right . )
In any event , once I hit page 220 , I stopped and strategized . I wasn't looking forward to finishing this novel . It had become a chore . I needed more context . So I got out my old Beatles cassettes and played them while reading . I haven't listened to the Beatles much since I was the same age as the protagonist . It was like struggling to watch something on an old tv with really bad reception and then banging the side of it and - - voila ! - - suddenly it's perfectly clear . The soundtrack added a sense of time / place and magnified the emotional cues , to the point where I felt like it had ended maybe twenty pages too short and was disappointed to put it down . ( You can also add to the context by watching a video on youtube called ` Student life in old Japan ' . )
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It's been a week since I've read the novel . It's getting better . I catch my memory twisting it around , adding things that weren't in it , deleting the dull stretches . It now seems much more haunting than when I was in the midst of it .
I'd still criticize the main character . I couldn't describe him . He's like a cameraman in a movie that you only see when he actually points the camera at a mirror . So it's hard to see why other people , especially women , are interested in him .
045 4 Norwegian Wood tells of a college student's life in the 1960s in Japan . The narrative primarily concerns itself with the relationships of the narrator , Toru Watanabe .
Watanabe is a humble , self-described ' average ' guy . In contrast to his perfectly plain self-depiction , he quietly questions the social mores and structure around him . His reluctance to mindlessly conform isolates him from most , but one-by-one he befriends a diverse cast of characters , all of whom are struggling with something . There's Naoko ( the ex-girlfriend of Watanabe's dead best friend ) , the womanizing Nagasawa , Nagasawa's main squeeze Hatsumi , and the spark-plug Midori .
Norwegian Wood is a novel about love , it is a novel about youth . It explores passion , why we burn and feel for others , the context of sex in love , and so many other things . But it NEVER analyzes , it never stops and reflects upon itself . It keeps moving , allowing us to experience all these emotions for ourselves and make of them what we will . I can't express enough how much of an experience this book is .
Inevitably Norwegian Wood has been compared to its influences : ' Catcher and the Rye ' , ' The Great Gatsby ' , and Thomas Mann's ' The Magic Mountain . ' While each novel has its own flavor , ' Norwegian Wood ' is arguably the most affecting of the bunch . It hurts every time I read this book . This novel has life in it , and the more you perceive and are in touch with your own experiences in this world , the more meaningful and poignant your time with this book will be .
047 4 This is my first experience with Murakami , so I can't compare it to anything else written by him , but from what I understand , it's quite different from many of his other novels . I've heard that there's a bizarre aspect to quite a few of his books that's not so prevalent in this one . This book is mainly a love story and a quite beautiful and tragic one at that . It's set in Tokyo and other parts of Japan in the 60 ' s and follows a young college student by the name of Toru who is in love with Naoko , the girlfriend of his best friend who died in an accident a few years back . There relationship begins with silent walks around Japan , both of them recalling thoughts in their own minds of their pasts with their lost friend and their relationship eventually blooms into something more than just a friendship . But a night of intimacy with Toru reveals a tortured side to Naoko and she leaves Tokyo to examine her life and her problems . They exchange letters back and forth leaving Toru unsure of where anything is going between him and Naoko and he isolates himself , retreating even from the one amazing , unique girl that he's met , Midori , who's willing to do anything to be with him .
This is not a happy book , but it's a beautiful book , a serene book . The Japanese have a true gift in their story telling that echoes in aspects of their culture . I always get a sense of peace when I'm reading a Japanese novel or short story and this was no exception . As tragic and lost as these characters seemed at times , I always saw hope for them , always had a vision of calm . This is a book that will definitely pull at your heartstrings and draw you into the characters . Murakami really has a gift for making his characters real . I kept thinking that this must be somewhat autobiographical of his own experiences in the 60 ' s , but the afterword says that it is not at all , that he actually had quite a boring life in the 60 ' s and put nothing of himself in this novel . If that's true , he's extremely perceptive of other people .
It's also been said that this is the most erotic of his novels , and there are quite a few sex scenes in here and they're extremely voyeuristic . This goes back to him making this such a personal book . At first I thought that the dialogue was really awkward during the sex scenes and it was going to be a complaint of mine , but then I realized that what was awkward was just the fact that he was including sexual dialogue where I didn't expect it . . . it was reality and a real intimate look into these characters lives .
This book was extremely well written and a great introduction to Murakami in my opinion and I'd definitely recommend it as a starting point to anyone else looking to pick something up by him . It's also only 296 pages which is short compared to many of his other books ! I think I'll read Kafka on the Shore next .
048 4 Quite possibly the saddest , yet most beautiful , story I have ever read . Murakami drew me so deep into his world that there were times I had to stop reading and just put my head in my hands , it was so emotional . I really felt like I was experiencing every detail with the characters .
050 4 The narrator in this novel is Toru Watanabe , a student living in Tokyo in 1969 - 1970 . His story is his relationship with two women . The first one is called Naoko , a sensitive person with a troubled personality since the suicide of her childhood friend Kizuki . Toru falls deeply in love with Naoko but she cannot come to terms with her depressive moods and soon has to be hospitalised at the Ami Hostel mental institution where her mentor Reiko tries to cure her . The other woman in Toru's life is Midori who is the opposite of Naoko : a sexually liberated young woman with a petulant and exuberant character .
A beautiful blending of the music , the atmosphere and the ethos which were predominant in the late 1960s with the story of Toru , a college student's erotic coming of age . The novel beautifully relates a young man's first , hopeless and romantic love .
052 4 norwegian wood is my favorite beatles song . i picked up this book for that reason . it was the first murakami book i read , and different than the ones i have read since .
like the song , norwegian wood is sweet and simple and sad . i enjoyed the story of a young man's journey through an extraordinarily emotional terrain . it has been a while since i have read this book , and i only hope that i can be fair in my review . when i read it , i could not put it down . i didn't want to . i wanted to stay with him , through his love and pain and heartache . i wanted to hold him through it . to take care of him . . . this is the best kind of book , where you feel like you can step into the pages and take the hand of the characters - bring them through the pain .
when they talk about norwegian wood , the song , a simple melody , a memory , i know what they mean . i understand . because i love that song . it is a memory to me . a journey and an understanding .
norwegian wood sings , ' i once had a girl , or should i say , she once had me ? ' that is this book . this story . this love . she has him . he thinks , maybe , he has her , but it is a fleeting grip . a touch . she has him the entire time . and she doesn't let go .
i reccommend this book to anyone who has ever felt the loss of a first love . to anyone who has ever loved at all .
it may not be like the rest of murakami's books . there are no unicorn skulls or wind-up birds , but it doesn't matter . this is a gentle look at a young man realizing what it is truly like to BE a man . and all the hurt and glory that goes along with it .
053 4 I am not very good at reviewing fiction but Norwegian wood was a beatiful touching story focussing on the interplay between few complex characters . The story takes place in Tokyo in 68 and following . It starts with the interaction between Watanabe ( the main character ) and his relation with Nakao ( the girlfriend of his best friend who commited suicide ) .
The translator note at the end of the book states that this work is more like a traditional novel , as opposed to cool , fragmented , American-flavored narratives that characterise his previous work . Not having yet read any other work from Murakami , I could not comment on that .
057 4 This review is from :
Norwegian Wood ( Hardcover )
As one who lived in Japan for ten years , I can't remember how I came across this book , nor can I pinpoint exactly what makes this book so outstanding . Perhaps haunting would be a fitting adjective . Once finished , the reader is left with a feeling of melancholy , and caught up in the main character of the story . As always , Mr . Murakami's characters are extremely believable , fascinating , and reaffirms the fact that regardless of nation or culture , people are basically the same , the world over , and all wrestle with the same set of existential dilemmas
059 4 Norwegian Wood is often described as the most perfect novel ever written . Should we be surprised that this incredible task was accomplished by a Japanese writer ? Not me .
Most of the world often has their eyes trained deftly on either Europe or America for the next big thing in literature . It seems that readers around the world even half-expect this when they hear about either J.K . Rowling or possibly the next Stephen King book , even though general readers find him too grocery-store , too accessible . King's worldwide appeal though is what is staggering , as well as Rowling's .
Slowly though , people are getting out from under the knee-jerk lull of 5th Avenue ad campaigns and finding writers like Haruki Murakami .
Norwegian Wood is considered by a lot of readers to be sub-par in comparison to his later works like
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
,
Sputnik Sweetheart
or
Dance , Dance , Dance
, but that's probably just the high-brow craziness talking as this novel is a testament to all that is good in writing . Norwegian Wood launched Haruki Murakami into the heated and much-too-close stratosphere of fandom and literary worship , and sent him sailing away to quieter shores for solitude and anonymity . Instead of falling apart though , he wrote more novels that would rival each other and continually raise the bar on his story-telling .
Murakami stated that he wrote Norwegian Wood because he wanted to see if he was capable of writing something straightforward , and what he considered mainstream ; as , at the time , he felt under immense pressures to conform . A lot of his detractors in Japan had often cited that his allegorical work in the early days -
A Wild Sheep Chase
and
Hard-Boiled Wonderland
- lacking , and superfluous . But the truth was , that they just didn't get it - yet .
Norwegian Wood is the bildungsroman tale of everyman Toru Watanabe and the love affairs that he has with two very different and emotionally distraught women , first Naoko , his best-friend's girlfriend ; and then slowly and casually , Midori . The story of Reiko though is probably the most memorable , indelible and touching , at least to me .
I found this to be one of the truest and most wrenching books that I've ever read . If more books were written to the caliber of Norwegian Wood , we could probably just turn off the TV sets for good .
060 4 Haruki Murakami's NORWEGIAN WOOD is the story of the coming of age of Toru Watanabe , a Tokyo student who grapples with a consuming love over 1968 to 1970 . Toru is captivated by Naoko , the girlfriend of his deceased best friend , and remains dedicated to her even as she descends into mental illness . This all happens against the backdrop of late 1960s political radicalism , free love and classic rock and jazz .
Murakami's novels usually have fantastical elements , but this is just a love story . Nonetheless , perennial elements of his style remain , such as a male protagonist negotiating a labyrinth of female characters , who have intriguing connections between them though they don't know each other , and a plot point or two that seems important but are never resolved . Haruki is a good novelist , though perhaps his range is too narrow for him to be a great one . Nonetheless , I truly enjoyed NORWEGIAN WOOD . It makes some powerful observations of that difficult transition from late adolescent to full adulthood , and its description of the impact of 1960s counterculture ( my favourite era of history ) is somewhat enlightening .
061 4 You learn so much about a teenager's life from this and being 17 and a teenager myself i found many connections between the story and my own life . The book is a combination of emotions and life in society . The 1st person view of the main character makes it even more exciting because you get to understand society and his emotions through his thoughts and views of the world .
You experience an array of emotions from the main character as he is introduced to new characters and you get to understand how the main character feels towards them . You can get a sense of his emotions as you read about the events of his life and what the consequences were . I think it is a very sad story but still a very enjoyable one and you can learn so much about life .
The only part i did not like was that at certain parts of the story , you will be bombarded with so many details that feel like details are repeated to what has already been described and you might find it boring and a bit tiring . But all and all it is an excellent book to read and enjoy .
063 4 This review is from :
Norwegian Wood ( Paperback )
Every time I re-read Norwegian Wood ( and I have done so two times and will likely read it again next year ) , I am immersed in the genius of Murakami . I like this book for how well Murakami fitted the different elements of Toru's story together . Love , grief , and coming-of-age are three major themes of this simple story . The life of Toru and the love that he pines for and the grief that he as well as those around him go through in modern-society life captures his coming-of-age struggles . Murakami's main character comes off as introspective , lonely , and taciturn but he is also very likable for his down-to-earthiness , eternal love and soul . Although I would not say this is a light read , I highly recommend it because the story stays with you . At least it has with me because I wasn't immediately impressed after I finished reading the book the first time . It was only after that I would think to myself how incredibly simple but powerful this story is . Since then , I have picked it up every now and then and I had never cease to find something new that I like a lot .
064 4 Every time I re-read Norwegian Wood ( and I have done so two times and will likely read it again next year ) , I am immersed in the genius of Murakami . I like this book for how well Murakami fitted the different elements of Toru's story together . Love , grief , and coming-of-age are three major themes of this simple story . The life of Toru and the love that he pines for and the grief that he as well as those around him go through in modern-society life captures his coming-of-age struggles . Murakami's main character comes off as introspective , lonely , and taciturn but he is also very likable for his down-to-earthiness , eternal love and soul . Although I would not say this is a light read , I highly recommend it because the story stays with you . At least it has with me because I wasn't immediately impressed after I finished reading the book the first time . It was only after that I would think to myself how incredibly simple but powerful this story is . Since then , I have picked it up every now and then and I had never cease to find something new that I like a lot .
065 4 When this book , Norwegian Wood , first appeared in Japan in 1987 , the author , Haruki Murakami , became such a celebrity that he fled his native land and lived abroad for several years . Since that time , the book has retained its popularity in Japan and become almost as popular elsewhere . With its intimacy , gentle sadness , and wisdom , the book deserves the love in which it is held .
Norwegian Wood describes the search for love in the face of the loneliness which separates people . The story is recounted by the 37 - year old narrator , Toru Watanabe , in recollecting his university life in Toyko eighteen years earlier . Watanabe is moved to reflect on his younger life by hearing a pale orchestral version of the Beatle's song Norwegian Wood while flying on a plane to Hamburg . Thus Murakami suggests at the outset how memory pales in comparison to actual events . The narrator , Watanabe , writes down his memories as an act of catharsis .
Although set in Japan , the characters in this book are largely westernized in their interests and behavior . The book is set against the backdrop of the student protests which were a prominent feature of university life in Japan , as in the United States , in the late 1960s . But the element of protest is muted and downplayed . It is largely a foil to the novel's themes of the search for love , intimacy , and sexuality . It is the latter types of things that matter , for the book , rather than the evanescent forms of public protest .
Norwegian Wood is a coming-of-age story in the manner of many American novels . The young Watanabe falls in love with two young women , Naoko and Midori . Naoko had been the childhood sweetheart of Watanabe's friend Kizuki , who mysteriously commits suicide at the age of 17 . She and Watanabe renew their acquaintance by chance in Tokyo and gradually become intimate . They sleep together only on Naoko's 20th birthday , but this event becomes pivotal to their relationship . Watanabe also befriends and gradually becomes involved with an extroverted , independent young woman named Midori who helps her aging father operate a small bookstore . Watanabe befriends her father when he is dying in the hospital . When Naoko leaves the university to live in a rest home or sanitarium ( in the manner of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain ) Watanabe struggles with his feelings for her and for Midori . Even in his maturity , when the reader meets Watanabe age 37 , it is unclear whether he has fully resolved his feelings in a way that brings him peace .
Murakami's novel focuses on sex and on its relationship to love . Much of the book describes the frustration of wanting a person that is distant or that one otherwise cannot have . Watanabe , and the young women in this book , all struggle with their feelings . While pursuing his serious relationships , Watanabe , in the company of his friend Nagasawa , frequently and successfully pursue young women in bars for one-night stands , an activity which Watanabe claims brings him little pleasure . In contrast to these incidents , Watanabe has only the single act of consummation with Naoko and apparently none during the course of the book with Midori . In a time of relatively easy sexuality , which is nostalgically and non-critically protrayed , Watanabe tries to know his emotions . Sexuality is portrayed positively , on the whole , and as integral to full human intimacy .
This is a sad tale which ends unhappily for many of its characters . Yet Watanabe and the other figures in the book struggle on to adulthood . Music plays a large role in the book . Much of the story reenacts the enigmatic lyrics to the Beatle song of the title , which was the favorite song of Naoko . Midori is a singer and Watanabe plays the guitar , both poorly . Naoko's friend at the sanitarium , an older woman named Reiko , is a trained classical pianist who continues to play on the guitar , Norwegian Wood , other Beatles songs , Bach fugues and much else . Reiko also teaches Watanabe a great deal about knowing his own heart . Music , love , and sex are tied intimately here , as they are in life .
Some time ago , I read Murakami's novel Sputnik Sweetheart which explores similar themes of love , sexuality , music , and frustration . Although I enjoyed that novel a great deal , it lacks the poignancy of this earlier and on the surface simple love story . This book speaks of the centrality and difficulty in life of the search for love . It also shows the difficulty of knowning oneself .
Robin Friedman
067 4 I read this book with much anticipation because of hearing that this is the book that put Murakami on the map , so to speak . I found it a tad disappointing but still very interesting .
This book focuses on many philosophical topics such as life and death , insanity and normalcy , love and being in love , etc . The whole book is a flashback to the narrator's youth and how he dealt with the various loves and losses as a college-age person .
Overall , the story is energetic with a general melancholy perfused throughout the book . Unlike other Murakami books I've read previously , Norwegian Wood lacks the supernatural component that I've become accustomed to with Murakami's works , although there are some surreal moments in the book . Despite the absence of the supernatural , I found this book to be the strangest and least understandable of all his books that I've read to date .
Usually , I couldn't put Murakami books down but with this book , it was difficult for me to finish it . I'm not sure if it was because of the general melancholy of the story or if I found this to be un-Murakami-like , but this is definitely NOT my favorite Murakami and I doubt that I will read this again .
069 4 It is always a hard task for me to review a novel by Murakami because of the sheer complexity of his work . This particular novel christened ' Norwegian Wood ' after the famous Beatles ' song has been looked at as one of Murakami's simplest novels where he was accused of succumbing to the story lines that he has prided himself on avoiding . After reading ' Norwegian Wood ' I must say with absolute conviction that these accusations are indeed invalid and have been based on the apparent plot of the novel that at first might seem simple , it is true that there were no signs of any sheep or disappearing elephants in this novel , but it is far from being simple .
I think Murakami has taken a great risk with this novel in the sense that he had the courage to step out of what is natural to him and attempt to write a story in a different style yet he succeeded in making it his own . ' Norwegian Wood ' is simply a love story but by saying that we have not even scratched the surface on the intensity of this novel . By the time Murakami was finished with it , this love story has sucked you in its nostalgic era of the 60 ' s and enveloped you in the smells and sounds of every season from January through to December . This isn't just a love story , it is a coming-of-age story , and it is a story within a story . The characters have the definite Murakami style , selfless , sweet some even lovable yet all are intriguingly twisted such is the real world we live in .
071 4 NW is a coming of age novel , for its protagonist , Toru , and Japan . It's not as surreal as HM's other novels - it's not surreal at all - but it's as good or better . The novel details the changes that Japan faced as a culture , post WW2 . Toru , the narrator , experiences love and loss and life , as a student in Tokyo in the ' 60s . He encounters many great characters as he adapts to the changing times , and his changing life , socially , sexually , intellectually . And HM's steady narrative takes the reader straight through the dark moments - the book has 4 suicides in it - and brings you , along with Toru , to a new understanding of Japan .
073 4 The story took off from a relatively slow start ( for Murakami ) but the story about love and relationships unfolds itself wonderfully . The characters are very real , and I'm left with something to think about after reading this . This is one of the best novels I've ever read .
075 4 Loved the book . For Murakami's apparent strong influence from The Great Gatsby note ( 1 ) the Gatsby character in this book , ( 2 ) the parallel between the narrator of this book and the narrator in Gatsby , ( 3 ) the fact of the narrator's love of the book , and ( 4 ) the reference on page 112 of the original Gatsby to Daisy's crying over Gatsby's beautiful shirts and the same scene in his short story Tony Takitani , and so on . Murakami writes Fitzgerald in a Japanese context . It's wonderful .
076 4 In Sean Wilsey's later adolescence , as described in his best-selling memoir , Oh ! The Glory of it All , he spent time at an alternative high school / college that he liked to Murakami's sanatorium in Norwegian Wood . Having adored Wilsey's description of this alternative school , I picked up Murakami's novel to read about this place where both the doctors and patients help one another , where we're all each others ' mirrors , and the doctors are part of us . They watch us from the sidelines and they slip in to help us if they see we need something , but sometime it happens that we help them .
Norwegian Wood is about much more than just this sanatorium , of course . It's a love story at its core ( which surprised hardcore Murakami fans , who were used to the darker , stranger topics of his first two novels ) . We follow late 1960 ' s college student Toru as he his torn between his mentally-ill pseudo-girlfriend and a spunky , unconventional , irreverent fellow classmate ( who happens to have a boyfriend of her own ) . Suicide is a repeated theme throughout the novel , along with love , lust , and what different people both give and expect from relationships . The novel is filled with many unforgettable passages , but rather than recount them here , I encourage you to give this book a read . I'm intrigued by this as Murakami's most easily accessible novel , so I'm looking forward to trying some of his more complex storylines , such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle .
077 4 I first got a copy of a different translation of this book in 1998 on a trip to Japan . My friend recommended it to me and told me it had a feel similar to the popular Manga Maisson Ikoku . The book was read two weeks later on the beach in Puerto Rico , and I must say this book , though long , reads like a cool summer breeze .
Murakami's nostalgia laden book gives a vivid account of campus life in Japan during the late 1960 ' s . We hear about the bar scene , the women , the loves , the lust and the troubles of a young man as he comes to terms with himself .
The story begins in Germany , with a business man on a plane suddenly being brought back to his youth by a muzac song in the background . The song , Norwegian Wood by the Beatles , takes this man back to his youth , and takes us along with him for the ride .
I'd rather not delve too much into details about the plot , as part of Murakami's appeal is the surrealist visions he presents and the world which is slowly created as every page is turned .
This book made Murakami into my favorite author . It is most similar to South of the Border , West of the Sun as well as some of the tales in the Elephant Vanishes . Murakami's visions of modern life in Japan are not to be missed , and I can not recommend this work enough .
079 4 Thinking back on the year 1969 , all that comes to mind for me is a swamp - - a deep , sticky bog that feels as if it's going to suck my shoe off each time I take a step , his 37 - year-old protagonist , Toru Watanabe , reflects in Haruki Murakami's coming-of-age novel , NORWEGIAN WOOD ( 1987 ) . I walk through the mud , exhausted . In front of me , behind me , I can see nothing but an endless swampy darkness ( p . 236 ) . Readers soon learn that eighteen years ealier , Watanabe's love affair with an emotionally troubled young woman led him to the very brink of an existential crisis .
Inspired by the Beatles ' Norwegian Wood , Murakami's novel tells the poignant story of Watanabe's introspective college days in Tokyo . After his best friend , Kizuki , commits suicide , Watanabe has a sexual encounter with Kizuki's girlfriend , Naoko , an equally introspective , though emotionally disturbed young woman . Naoko's older sister has also committed suicide . When her life seems unbearable , Naoko enters a mental health facility where , upon visiting her , Watanabe meets her roommate , Reiko , who is also mentally unstable . The three develop an alchemical friendship , which is bound for sadness . While committed to Naoko ( a symbol of death and destruction ) , whose sanity continues to deteriorate as she retreats further into herself , Watanabe becomes enamored with Midori ( a symbol of life and redemption ) , an independent and sexually liberated young college acquaintance .
The relationship between Watanabe and Naoko is truly mesmerizing . Naoko's letters affect her sole lover with the same unbearable sadness he would experience while staring into Naoko's eyes . I had no way to deal with it , Watanabe sadly recalls , no place I could take it to or hide it away . Like the wind passing over my body , it had neither shape nor weight , nor could I wrap myself in it . NORWEGIAN WOOD is nothing less than a haunting love story written straight from the heart .
G . Merritt
080 4 A love story is a perfect device for the exposition of both the mood and the analysis of the psychological state that is created by the mood . The mood is lornful longing . The psychological state is death and transfiguration . All of this beautifully told through the vehicle of a Japanese college student's attatchment to the girlfried of his chilhood best friend , who had commited suicide after a pool game . One can't help but be drawn deeply into the huge tidal waves of the protagonist's affairs of the heart ( and sometimes , flesh ) , beneath the surface of his listless life.Nor can one fail to be impressed with the
bits of devious humor and settings of breathtakingly cool beauty that the author has used to punctuate the narrative .
083 4 ` Norwegian Wood ' is still the one Murakami book that ` everyone ' in Japan has read , says Jay Rubin in his Translator's Note of this simple , straightforward , semi-autobiographical story . Toru Watanabe as narrator of this 1960s period piece reminds me of Nick Carraway in Fitzgerald's Gatsby ; Watanabe seems one step removed from the action even while he is part of it , and his commentary shapes a critique of contemporary Japanese society . So Norwegian Wood is a love story set against a larger theme of questioning the Establishment . Another theme is the characters ' insouciance about lovemaking . Letterwriting and love letters are part of Murakami's ( Watanabe's ) narrative strategy , which lend this novel a heightened sense of intimacy . Near the end , Watanabe says , Letters are just pieces of paper . . . Burn them , and what stays in your heart will stay ; keep them and what vanishes will vanish . Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood stays in the heart ; it is his enchanting letter from the ` 60s , with love .
084 4 This is a delicate and measured account of the recollections of a young man's love life . We learn why he loves and why he's lost , all narrated brilliantly ( as only Murakami can ) to ensure that the story is both gripping and poised . Even though the story takes place in the late 60 ' s in Japan , it is completely contemporaneous and mostly universal .
085 4 No doubt this is one of Murakami's best novels ; it reads so deliciously . I was in pain to see the remaining pages diminish . Although Rubin's translation is excellent , sometimes i wonder , if I read it in Japanese , the depth of poignancy will intensify .
I love Murakami's usage of complex female characters such as Naoko in Norwegian Wood and Shimamoto in South of the Border and West of the Sun . These characters are the embodiment of secular engimas and our beautific ideals - whatever we chase , yet knowing we can never reach . On the surface , both Naoko and Shimamoto are tearfully beautiful and perfect persons - sophisticated , delicate and sensually desirable - to the readers and apparently to Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood and Hajime in South of the Border the two main male characters in the novels . Contrary , both female characters are so imperfect that they are impaired to response to human warmth and consummate love from Toru and Hajime . While Toru and Hajime court them , the grief looming from the confirmation of their initial conviction deepens as they realize their sacrificial love is not answered . In addition , Murakami uses the conundrum of Naoko and Shimamoto's characters as the main thrust of suspense in his story telling . With the layers of these women's dilemma being unfolded one after another , we as readers begin to feel helpless , but compelled to pursue to the core of problems with Naoko or Shimamoto . Murakami never explicates exactly how - and why - Naoko is unable to recover or why Shimamoto in the other novel so estranged and lost the ability to simply love . In Norwegian Wood , this sadness is reinforced through the dejected feeling of Toru , and this growing sadness remains with readers even long after the finish . We are reminded to accept certain things in life as what they are without any stipulations .
Naoko is apparently a more likable character than Shimamoto's . The surreal image of Naoko's naked shape under the moonlight is purer than that of Shimamoto's somewhat crude sexual deviance and perversion during her last encounter with Hajime , Toru's counterpart . Given that Murakami wrote South of the Border some years after Norwegian Wood I presume the author did not want to create a character that supercedes Naoko's imperfect purity .
087 4 There is something magical about this book . From the way it entered my life , the events that coincided with the reading , and of course , the story itself . It is told with such magic and beauty you could call it dreamlike , but the characters and events feel increadibly real . At times I nearly cried , fell ( more than ) a little in love with Midori , and even threw the book across the room in frustration with the narrator's actions . But I would be impossible to stop reading . Really , I felt like a different person after reading this . Not many books can do that !
090 4 I love this book . Love love love it . Elegaic and pitch perfect , ' Norwegian Wood ' has all the motional vibrance and intensity of early Murakami work , but here that energy is crystalized . The novel's action is akin to tasting the first drop of water to melt away from a frozen desert . Yes , it's that kind of book .
This being Takashi Murakami , however , there are girls . Girls who vanish . Witty smart girls and sad tragic girls . There is also great music . Someone should market a CD called the ' The Music of Murakami ' . He's constantly reerencing music in his works , giving his readers a built in soundtrack . This book is a classic . Murakami may be the first truly universal storyteller . If only we could get more of his work translated to English !
091 4 All I can say is the last two mornings I've felt really upbeat when waking up . I am not a morning person . It is winter . I hate the cold . My job is dull and boring . The only thing I can think of that would cause me to be in good spirits is this book . I've devoured it on my commute to the aforementioned bore of a job I have . It has made me smile and happy .
Yes , there are a few suicides in the story . Nevertheless , there is plenty of love and happiness in the novel that are very uplifting . There is also plenty of humor . I highly recommend the book .
Lastly , while I also enjoyed the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles , I have to admit that I liked this one more simply because it was more straight forward and easier to follow . yes , I'm an intellect like that .
092 4 37 - year-old businessman Watanabe recalls his days as an ' ordinary ' University student in the 70s and Norwegian Wood is his story.Through his narrating , the reader knows very convincing characters like Naoko ( his beloved , ethereal gal whose importance I believe is pivotal as a deceptively simple romance for readers looking for a poignant ' love story ' ) , very charming Reiko ( who also has her strange , tantalising story to tell ) and fickle , sensitive and frank Midori who , genuinely loves Watanabe .
Norwegian Wood surely deserves more than three stars for the author's deeply insightful perspective for all characters , including the lonely , young one-night-stander Watanabe.Obviously , the characters are so true-to-life that they could be strangers standing beside you , young adults reading Thomas Mann at a cafe or chatting in the pub with jazz buzzing around , or somebody playing piano in the restaurant you are sitting in .
Yet , from the author's pen , every character is bestowed a kind of tenderness , sympathy and helplessness with their plights.Trust your intuition , the characters have no way out although they've tried their best like you and I .
The reason why I give it a three-star is the book doesn't give me what some reviewers have felt upon finishing.While admiring the author's sharp portraits of the characters ( in fact , its so good that it doesn't feel you are reading Fiction at all ! ) , as a reader I would have expected a louder , more engaging if not all - fair voice in a novel , instead of a blander , quieter piece like Norwegian Wood that reads deceptively like some popular pulps .
093 4 I gave this 2 stars simply because it kept me reading , and I think Murakami is a good writer in that he can string sentences together well and keep things moving and interesting enough that you don't chuck the book across the room at the wall in utter boredom . Really I'd like to give it 2.5 stars though .
It's missing 3 stars because this book had me laughing in incredulity half the time , and left me at the end with both a sort of slimy , need-a-shower feeling , as well as a huh ? ! sort of feeling of total pointlessness . I got about 3 / 4 of the way through the book before I realized , no , it's not actually going to suddenly change directions and get a point or depth .
Perhaps it's that I'm not very clued up on Japanese culture , perhaps the translation really is a bad one , as at least one other reviewer thought , but I feel like if there was a point , I completely missed it . To me it was a random succession of inexplicable , sudden , almost porn-movie-esque bowchickabowbow simply-for-titillation one-night-stand sex scenes and entirely too many suicides to make ANY sense . It got to a point where I felt like he was just throwing in cheap plot thrills of sex and death to keep a really pointless look at a self-absorbed college kid's life going to the wimpy end , and in the end , the number of cheap plot thrills he resorted to was pretty laughable .
On a positive note - the characters are quirky in a pretty believable way , and I liked Midori's character especially , although I felt like their romance had a sort of strange pace to it , like it all sort of came to a head rather over suddenly . The book is not totally lacking in depth - there are some interesting thoughts on triangles and relationships between people that suffer or improve because of the presence of a third person . Some of it strove for depth though and just sort of fell short and just seemed pretentious , to me . I wish I felt more for any of the characters - I didn't really like or care about any of them , which I think was my main problem - I couldn't identify , really . There was either too much vulnerability ( Naoko ) or too little ( Toru , who , I'm sorry to say , just seemed like an unfeeling oaf who plodded his way through whatever life handed him ) .
In general I feel a bit undecided about Murakami . I think he's a very good writer in a way - everything was well described , so you do get absorbed into the setting , and can see everything clearly as he describes it , and I must admit , it did keep me reading , but the plot itself just seemed to be pretty lackluster and full of sudden , unrealistic dramatic plot devices that just were too frequent and unsupported to really make it believable or worthy of much thought or praise .
098 4 Maybe it's the translation that was weak but having read Sputnik Sweetheart , Norwegian Wood seems immature . I've read that this book was written early in Murakami's career but published after his other works and he himself did not want this book widely distributed outside of Japan so maybe he felt the same way .
Some of the dialogue felt so set up and sometimes downright silly . You could almost hear the author thinking , now here is where I make him seem really deep or this will make her seem tragic .
On the other hand , I really enjoyed the descriptions of dorm life and everyday activities . When the main charcater was alone , it all flowed nicely . Whenever dialogue was involved , it often seemed contrived .
I hope I don't offend anyone with this mediocre rating especially amongst all the 5 star ratings . I do like Murakami's writing though and am looking forward to his Wind up Bird Chronicle .
099 4 I have to admit straight out that Murakami is one of my all time favorite authors . I've read all of his available books including the tightly wound Wind-Up Bird Chronicle . Just about all his previous books are complex in terms of the almost supernatural events that seem to take place , switches in time periods , and other narrative oddities . In one sense , this is the most normal of Murakami's books in terms of narration , but it would be a mistake to think it's less complex . Yes , it's a lyrical and moving love story , but the writing is so exquisite and the characters so endearing ( Reiko , Naoko and even Storm Trouper will stay in my mind for a long time ) that when it ended , I went back and started reading again from the beginning . It's been a long time since a book compelled me to re-read right away .
I don't think the parallel is unfounded with Magic Mountain - - Murakami's narrator just happens to be reading it while Naoko is trying to get through her emotional despair in a sanitorium of sorts . Like Hans C . , no one seems to really get better and time seems to slow to a stop during the scenes in the home . Some of the most touching scenes take place during Toru's visits to Reiko and Naoko . Toru is such a gentle and human character - - we experience real sensuality through his interactions with other women . Maybe it's Murakami's perfectly controlled prose that makes this such a work of art . It is so beautiful that it will make you cry . These characters are so real , it can be frightening at times .
This book is a good introduction to Murakami because of its surface simplicity , but anyone who enjoyed it should run out and buy his other books which are also terrific . Although I like Mishima too , I think Murakami is the greatest living Japanese writer . Don't miss this one .
102 4 I love Murakami and honestly believe he is one of the five best writers alive today . I've come to love his off-beat plotlines and the way he creates worlds that combine our reality with off-beat ones . When I heard about this book I was apprehensive about reading something many described as a somewhat conventional love story . But as is always the case with his fiction ( and I guess 4 million readers can't all be wrong ) , Norwegian Wood is a gem .
The story follows Toru Watanabe , a middle-aged man who hears the Beatles song that gives the book its name and is transported back to the end of his teenage years . He recounts his early years as part of a trio consisting of his best friend and his best friend's girlfriend . Tragedy strikes when his friend commits suicide and its impact defines the rest of the story . Toru comes across as being a familiar yet unfamiliar character - he's the outsider who is liked by people who find themselves as the center of attention in whatever social groups they are a part of . As the story continues , Toru falls in love with Naoko , his best friend's girlfriend , but is unable to pursue anything because of the lasting trauma of Kizuki's death .
As conventional as main plot may come across , Murakami as always finds a way to infuse the story with wonderful details and slightly odd twists and turns that make the whole experience one not to be missed . Although the book does not live up to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle , it's still a delectable read .
103 4 My first book by Murakami , recommended by a friend . . . And a great fascination - I must have started well . This book hit me hard , opened my mind to things which I used to regard as important , but for some time have ignored or have not found time to think about . Now I see they still are important !
Norwegian Wood is about what happens deep in the soul , about individual psychological maturation , about struggle to find out who you really are . And some cannot cope with all this burden . It is also about meeting and ( sometimes accidentally ) getting to know people who would have an impact on who you became . Love is very significant , but this novel is by no means a love story - love is a feeling , which is something the main character , Toru , a college student , has to come to terms with . You could say this is simply another coming of age story , but there is no rebellion against the old , there is only a search to get your own place in the puzzle .
There is great depth in this ( some say , semi-autobiographical and most realistic of Murakami's ) novel . The psychological portraits of all characters ( no exceptions ) are very thorough , I love their life stories ( especially Reiko and Midori ) so that I have only a great appetite for more Murakami soon !
104 4 I bought this book a long time ago , thinking it looked interesting , but it was probably two years before I actually got around to reading it . When I did , I just about devoured it , not because it is the best book in the world , but because it captures a particular time so well , and the choices one comes to in building a life philosophy .
Set in Japan in 1969 and 1970 , it's the story of a young college student , Toru , and his relationship with a girl , Naoko , who was the girlfriend of his best friend , who killed himself a couple of years before . Toru's life isn't charmed , but he's making it through , despite his shortcomings and mistakes . Naoko has a harder time dealing with life itself , with her own and others ' imperfections , and this inability to cope with the everyday eventually leads her down her own path . Toru attempts to understand her , be there for her , and love her as best he can . Being only 19 himself ( at the beginning of the book ) , he's got a lot of growing up to do and decisions to make himself . In the end , he probably makes the only decision he can make without going crazy himself , but this is also not without a great deal of sadness .
The one gripe I have about this book is that there is quite a few sex scenes . . . This is played off , in part , to Toru's craziness , but still was kind of weird . What I did enjoy , though , was the description of the few people closest to Toru , his roommate , whom Toru has nicknamed Stormtrooper , Toru's only friend in the dorms , this guy's girlfriend , Midori , Naoko , and Naoko's roommate . Each is a different type of crazy . Some have even realized as much , and it's interesting to see how each character deals with that in themselves , and as it pertains to living with the rest of this crazy world . And no , not everybody makes it .
105 4 I could go on and on about how and why I love this book . But it would be an example of the most inefficient and ineffective expression of love .
This book is an example of efficiency and effectiveness that is almost in-human . You can almost feel the words and ideas form from the simplest of emotions and thoughts .
106 4 . . .
I could not get my head out of it . It's so simplisticly beautiful because of Murakami's fantastic writing . The story just flows . His realistic approach to the story line , the characters , the situations , the emotions and occurances that evolve are very touching , in a way where the reader can relate to , or draw from happenings in their own lives or others they know of . And I feel it's that reality that will draw a reader to a book , and specifically to Murakami's writing in ' Norwegian Wood ' .
It tell's the story of a young man , Toru , growing up in a 1960 ' s Tokyo , and his life amongst falling in love , unusual friendships , passion , lust and loss .
The story sparring a over a few years only , the reader feels so strongly for Toru , and his mishaps in falling in love , and his emotions that come through it . Naoko , Toru's first love , was introduced through his best friend Kizuki . Both Naoko and Kizuki introduce a new element to the story line I havn't really experienced before , one of real emotional confusion , not really knowing where you stand , where Toru seems to try to be differentiating between what's real in relationships , and what isn't , what's real in the world , what isn't , and why things happen for the reasons they do .
This is furthur seen after some time at university , when Toru meets Midori , a girl who is in only one of classes . She literally marches into his life , and is a charater with fabulous depth , life and thought , and she really throws it to Toru , who makes him realise what kind of a person he is , where in the world they sit , how to be real , and what love , interest , passion and real emotion is . Toru is really tried to choose between what has happened in the past , and what will happen in the future .
All these emotions that he feels are fabulous , because the reader can relate to so many of these , if you're a younger reader like me , 18 , you can relate because you're experienceing them now . You want to know what's going to happen . You want to feel what they feel , You want to experience it , or you want to experience it again . And you love the fact that you may not be the only one feeling it . For older readers , live it again . Live the feeling of wanting to express to your first love how you feel , the crazy uncontrollable hormone levels , those first moments of sharing something new , the awkwardness that many young adults have .
Evocative , entertaining , sexy and funny ; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around . Omer Ali , Time Out .
Could not be better said ! Murakami is fantastic . And this is the reason why I just let myself fall into the book , and I will be again when I go to buy another of his books tomorrow ! Definently definently recommended for anyone who loves life , the feeling fo desire , passion , intrigue and in that amazing imagery .
Just simply beautiful .
111 4 Hard to gauge whether it is the translation or the story itself that comes across so weak in this novel . There is a flatness to the storytelling that belies the emotions Murakami appears to want convey , but I assumed that to be the way he felt when he was in his 20s , trying to sort through a handful of young women and one older woman as to what he was looking for in the way of a relationship . The story is told through the eyes of Watanabe , a college student on the verge of turning 20 , wrestling with his affections for two women , Naoka and Midori , the death of a high school friend , and his own insecurities during a cultural revolution of sorts in Japan in 1969 .
Confusion mounts during the course of the narration , especially in regard to Naoka , who checks herself into a mountain retreat after one night with Watanabe . Seems Naoka is also having a difficult time coming to grips with the death of their mutual friend , her sister , and life in general , and feels she needs help coping with these matters . Meanwhile , Watanabe is left to struggle with emotions in Tokyo , which soon become sublimated in Midori , whose openness he seems to enjoy but can't bring himself to commit to her . After several failed attempts he finally reaches Naoka , and the reader is treated to a wonderful description of the Kyoto region , and meets an odd older woman , who Naoka has now confided in , and in whose guitar we hear the weeping strains of Norwegian Wood .
It is really more a collection of stories loosely held together by the sense of displacement Murakami projects in his characters . In that sense it is similar to
After the Quake
but with a continuation of the same characters . The chapters take each set of emotions in turn , ranging from a scant 15 to over 100 pages in length . The stories are certainly compelling , but the sense of detachment is a bit off putting , and the ending for me defied all credulity . It appeared tacked on .
The emotions seem real enough but why Murakami chose to end his story this way really surprised me . Of course , he projects the sense of loss by noting that he is looking back on these events as he plunges through a dense cloud bank on his way into Hamburg airport . There is a post-modern feeling to this novel which annoyed me , as it explores emotions only so deep as to give you some kind of sense for what the characters may have been feeling , but juxtaposes them in ways that all too often seem at odds with each other . Literary allusions abound in this novel , most notably Thomas Mann and F . Scott Fitzgerald . You get the sense that not only Watanabe , but the author is unsure of himself as he explores these currents of emotions , trying to make sense of the feelings he had back in ' 69 .
112 4 Alas , lost in translation .
I highly doubt if it is ever possible to ' really ' translate . . .
I've read Korean version over and over . . . and over again . Loved it . Hyponotized by it . Almost therapeutic I say .
I've skimmed over the long awaited English translation just soon as it came out but was instantly disappointed .
It was a bit worst than just missing the subtle nuances . . .
Still , whatever the translation we've got , I'm highly recommending this book .
This book is somewhere around my top one or two favorite book .
BTW , I've picked up and compare the Japanese version of Hear the wind sing / pinball 1973 with Korean version ( using three different dictionaries ) .
Being very similar in Altaic language structure and all , yet supprised to see that the translation wasn't 100% . . .
Lost in translations indeed . . .
113 4 Norwegian Wood is completely different from Murakami's other books . It is a straightforward story of a young man's coming-of-age and his relationships with two main women and two others who are secondary yet also important . There is nothing of Murakami's trademark surrealism and paranormal in this book . In an afterword from the author , he tells how there was an uproar in Japan when this book came out . People felt betrayed by it , accusing him of abandoning his unique personal style for commercialism . But Murakami says that he wrote the book as an challenge to himself , to prove that he could write in a realistic style as well .
And he does succeed at that , although I did miss the creativity of his usual style . As the title suggests , the story takes place in the 1960 ' s when the Beatles were at the height of their popularity . Toru , the main character , is a university student in Tokyo . It was a time of unrest and student takeovers of campus buildings in Japan as well as in America ( which surprised me - I had thought that the student rebellions of the 60 ' s were due to the Vietnam War which Japan was not involved in . ) Although student unrest is always included in descriptions of the book , I felt that it didn't really play a large part in it .
Toru is a quiet young man , mostly a loner . He is closely involved with two women - almost-girlfriends - and loves all four of the women in different ways . But with each of them , there are obstacles and he never really gets a true intimate partnership going with any of them . Two of the women are mentally ill ( he meets one as the roommate of the other in their mental hospital . ) The mental illness is an interesting aspect of the novel , but it is very vague . Except for the suicide attempts of one woman , they didn't come across as mentally ill to me . The suicidal one was somewhat detached and depressed , but within normal range , and her depression seemed to be a normal response to grief rather than clinical depression . Also , the mental institution was really more of a utopian community than a hospital or institution . I felt that these were women who preferred to withdraw from the world to live a serene life of contemplation , rather than patients suffering from mental illnesses . Perhaps in another place and time they would have been cloistered nuns .
I admired the respect , and even tenderness , that the author showed in his treatment of one the of women who was much older than Toru . She was portrayed as equally desirable and worthy of being loved by a young man , as the young girls . Beautiful . . . and something you never see in Western literature .
Norwegian Wood is a quietly wise and deep novel about the subtle nuances of relationships and how complicated - perhaps impossible - even the simplest and most fundamental relationship between a man and a woman can be .
( 389 pages )
114 4 This review is from :
Norwegian Wood ( Paperback )
A friend suggested Murakami to me after I told her I was looking for a new ( to me ) author . This is the novel that is recommended for first time Murakami readers .
The author takes you on a ride without an excessive amount of description . The novel is well paced and makes you care about the characters .
115 4 A friend suggested Murakami to me after I told her I was looking for a new ( to me ) author . This is the novel that is recommended for first time Murakami readers .
The author takes you on a ride without an excessive amount of description . The novel is well paced and makes you care about the characters .
116 4 This is the most straightforward narrative I've read from Murakami . However his knack for crafting shocking , and revealing dialogues for his characters remain a strong force in this novel .
His protagonist , Toru , deals with the suicide of his teenage best friend Kizuki and develops a troubled relationship with the latter's girlfriend , Naoko , even as Toru struggles to manage a regular life as an undergrad .
What is interesting about Toru , from whose perspective the story unfolds , is his rather stoic and almost passive nature to the events and people around him . Things happen to him , and it feels like he lives out his experiences in a resigned manner . Goodnatured and never demonstrative of his pain and feelings , the reader gets under his skin via his relationships with the other characters , most notably the nubile and straight-shooting wannabe-nymphomanic Midori . Murakami manages to achieve reader empathy with this lonely young man with little effort .
Zany characters , always a reliable presence in Murakami's works , abound in this novel . From the OCD college roommate ' Stormtrooper ' who springs to life at 6 am while doing radio calisthenics , to the ladies ' man Nagasawa , to Reiko , a sage-like ex-musician with an unhappy past , and of-course Midori , who gets my vote as one of the most memorable characters in this novel , Murakami spins a sensitive and absorbing yarn about the heart of a boy and its entanglements .
117 4 This review is from :
Norwegian Wood ( Paperback )
In some ways I regret reading it as it sets such a high bar for everything that follows . The hardest thing to do is to take the tried and make it new . A love story ? Mundane right ? And no talking cats . A thrill ride of language to the last .
119 4 This novel is suffused with death . Various characters flirt with it , and the main character knows several people who have committed suicide . Whether he is trying to describe a lost generation of Japanese young adults is unclear .
I do like the flat , affect-less tone , the almost deliberate avoidance of cultural markers ( except for place names like Shibuya , Shinjuku - - all great shopping districts with congregations of young people ) . All the young women are obssessed with death and sex . The young man at the center ( I was about to say heart but changed my mind ) is apparently irresistible to the ladies , as he can always find someone willing to sleep with him . The young women are as casual about their bodies as the young man is about his affections .
Several times , his women friends tell him he has a unique way of thinking . This usually follows a line of his dialogue . That makes it funny : the line comes off flat , but the female response is almost always admiring . Hence , the comedy .
I have no idea what the main protagonist looks like , but in spite of his self-deprecating ways , assume he must be magnetic .
The student protests are so much window dressing .
My favorite parts of the novel are the sanatorium scenes ( the landscape is described with very plain language , but still manages to be evocative , don't ask me how Murakami manages to pull this off ) and the scenes of Midori's dying father in the hospital . I also like the other chick magnet , Nagasawa .
If the evidence of this novel is to be believed , many Japanese women have a certain je ne sais quoi , a kind of laissez faire attitude that young American women can only hope to emulate . . .
122 4 Out of all Murakami's books I've read this one is my favourite ; Murakami is a master at mixing extremes to create something new and bigger than the compromise that we have come to accept ; he often deals with life & death , dreams & reality , passion & routine and reject the notion that they are opposites ; in this book , while dealing with those he also reject the notion that hope and despair are opposites ; he shows them mixed , one leading to the other and vice-versa .
123 4 This review is from :
Norwegian Wood ( Paperback )
Murakami is internationally known for a body of work that encompasses a surreal , dreamy , time-sequence-challenged form of fiction ( as well as a number of non-fiction pieces ) . This novel - - said to be somewhat autobiographical - - is a mesmerizing piece of fiction . Narrated by an adult looking back on an adolescence of confusion and uncertainty , it will certainly trigger knowing nods from its readers . The book is more dramatic than my life ( and I suspect more than yours as well ) , but the deep uncertainty of life in the transition between living at home and making one's way in the world should be familiar to most . Characters in Murakami's books tend to talk a lot and even write letters ( how dated ! ) . But they also tell intriguing and believable stories that both anchor them in a specific time and place but also express the universal . A lot in this book is not as it seems . On a superficial level , life is treated as a chore or a bad joke . But what good would it be to have a story that never scratched deeper than an American television prime-time drama into the lives of college students ?
Murakami teases us by setting up story lines that never get fully resolved . By this , I don't mean that you have to fill in small details . I mean that people veer off like rockets and you never hear from them again . Or , at best , they are like comets that make recurrent entries into your orbit before being destroyed or escaping forever . People like this are intriguing and stories that include them are somewhat addictive . Suicide makes its way through this book as a reasonable alternative to life . But Murakami craftily asserts again and again that death is part of life and not its opposite . What's hard in life is not avoiding death , but rather living true to your creed or belief system . One of the most effective moments in this moving novel is the scene where the narrator spends a considerable amount of time in a hospital talking to ( talking at ? ) a dying man . This scene is not maudlin , nor is any scene in this book manipulative . The book is an exploration of growth , challenge , stumbling and realignment . If you like this book , you have a lot more Murakami to explore . And if you like this book , you might also like the books of David Mitchell , an English novelist with a strong attraction to Japan and Japanese themes .
124 4 Murakami is internationally known for a body of work that encompasses a surreal , dreamy , time-sequence-challenged form of fiction ( as well as a number of non-fiction pieces ) . This novel - - said to be somewhat autobiographical - - is a mesmerizing piece of fiction . Narrated by an adult looking back on an adolescence of confusion and uncertainty , it will certainly trigger knowing nods from its readers . The book is more dramatic than my life ( and I suspect more than yours as well ) , but the deep uncertainty of life in the transition between living at home and making one's way in the world should be familiar to most . Characters in Murakami's books tend to talk a lot and even write letters ( how dated ! ) . But they also tell intriguing and believable stories that both anchor them in a specific time and place but also express the universal . A lot in this book is not as it seems . On a superficial level , life is treated as a chore or a bad joke . But what good would it be to have a story that never scratched deeper than an American television prime-time drama into the lives of college students ?
Murakami teases us by setting up story lines that never get fully resolved . By this , I don't mean that you have to fill in small details . I mean that people veer off like rockets and you never hear from them again . Or , at best , they are like comets that make recurrent entries into your orbit before being destroyed or escaping forever . People like this are intriguing and stories that include them are somewhat addictive . Suicide makes its way through this book as a reasonable alternative to life . But Murakami craftily asserts again and again that death is part of life and not its opposite . What's hard in life is not avoiding death , but rather living true to your creed or belief system . One of the most effective moments in this moving novel is the scene where the narrator spends a considerable amount of time in a hospital talking to ( talking at ? ) a dying man . This scene is not maudlin , nor is any scene in this book manipulative . The book is an exploration of growth , challenge , stumbling and realignment . If you like this book , you have a lot more Murakami to explore . And if you like this book , you might also like the books of David Mitchell , an English novelist with a strong attraction to Japan and Japanese themes .
125 4 It was kind of autobiographic , I guess . The characters are so lonesome , weird , emotional cripples and so needy .
Is not the story that it's so great about this book , is the way he is guiding the reader through an awkward journey of emotions and feelings .
You will not have a way out and you'll feel absolutely close to all of the characters
126 4 This is the third book by Haruki Murakami I read ( after Sputnik and South of the Border ) and the best so far . Originally written in 1987 , the book begins in an airport in Germany , as the titular song by the Beatles playing in the sound system makes middle age Toru Watanabe remember his life as a college student in the late 1960s . As a drama student living in a pension in Tokyo he has to chose between the love of the unstable Naoko ( a friend from high school , girlfriend of a friend of Watanabe that commited suicide , and who now lives in a sort of asylum in rural Japan ) and the increasing approaches of his college classmate Midori . Meanwhile , he makes two friends : the nerdy , cleanliness obsessed , geography student nicknamed Storm Trooper and the ladies man Nagasawa , an amoral student who plans to enter Japan's diplomatic corps . A great book about remembrances , love and the joy and occasional sadness of young life . Perhaps not for the prurrient , since , as in other books by Murakami , explicit sex often punctuates the story .
127 4 This novel is earthy , romantic , sad and very occasionally dull , for after all the protagonist is often bored and lonely . He has few friendships , but those he has , with one exception , are very strong . He has a very strong moral sense , and deep skepticism of the values of the majority of other college students around him . He is delightfully honest .
The novel is well written . What struck me is that while written in the autobiographical style , dialogue is very important , and in fact you sometimes learn important things about the protagonist through dialogue first : ( stop if you haven't read book ) how much he is in love with Midori , and just how much self discipline it takes to go through the day and remain active . This is quite realistic , as conversation often gives us insight into ourselves .
As an interesting aside with some relevance , Barack Obama's two years attending Columbia University were spent in relative isolation with few friends ( source , Wall Street Journal editorial , Sept 11 , which was actually objective ) .
129 4 Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 but spent most of his youth in Kobe . Norwegian Wood was first published in Japan in 1987 , and first translated into English in 2000 .
Toru Watanabe tells the story , looking back on his days as university student living in Tokyo . His circle of friends was very small , and he appears to have always been a fairly solitary type . Originally from Kobe , Toru only had one real friend at school - Kizuki , who committed suicide at seventeen . He went on to university in Tokyo , where he largely appeared to keep to himself . There , he did - briefly - have a roommate at his dormitary - though the pair had very little in common . ( Toru's roommate is known only as Storm Trooper in the book , a nickname gained through his obsession with sanitation ) . Nagasawa , a diplomacy student at the university , was more an acquaintance than a real friend . He was very intelligent , and came from an influential family - he took Toru under his wing after the pair discovered a common love of The Great Gatsby . ( No-one else in the dorm had any interest had any interest in the classics ) . Nevertheless , they did little together other than drink and chase women .
Toru's two key relationships , however , were both with women . One was Naoko - a Beatles fan and the very delicate one-time girlfriend of Kizuki.The pair meet up again in Tokyo , roughly a year after Kizuki's death and start spending more and more time together . Eventually , Toru falls for Naoko and , on the evening of Naoko's twentieth birthday , things get intimate . Unfortunately , the evening proves a little difficult for Naoko to deal with and she takes off - booking herself into a sanitorium in an attempt to deal with her difficulties . The pair keep in touch write to each other , though , and Toru is keen to see her again .
In Naoko's absence , however , the arrival of Midori Kobayashi complicates things . Like Toru , she studies drama at the university - but she's very different sort of person to Naoko . Lively and outgoing , she combines her studies with helping her father in his bookshop . Gradually , she and Toru spend more and more times together - and it leaves Toru a little unsure which direction to travel in .
A little frustratingly , the book left me with a couple of questions about some of the characters . Despite only being a minor character , I couldn't help wondering what happened to Storm Trooper . . . Similarly , I found myself feeling concerned for Reika , Naoko's closest friend at the sanitorium - and hoping that things worked out for her . Most of all , there's no indication of how Toru's life progressed , between the book's final page and the flight to Germany that sparked his memories . However , it's an excellent book overall , and well worth reading .
130 4 I read this book along with several others in preparation for a trip to Japan . Most of the book takes place in the 60 ' s / 70 ' s following the life of the 20 year old protagonist , Toru , who is in love with his dead friend's girlfriend . There was a mini epidemic of teenage suicides during this time in Japan and Norwegian Wood touches on that topic . Murakami develops rich and complex characters like Midori and Reicho ( 2 friends of the protagonist ) .
The story is narrated by the protagonist's older self at the age of 37 . You gain a better understanding of modern Japanese culture while reading a very entertaining and rich story . Very pleasant read ! Highly recommended !
132 4 i just had read The Bell Jar two days before , and picked up Norwegian Wood without really thinking about it . i didn't realize mental illness figured so prominently in this one as well .
i'd grown up in japan and remember hearing about the book Noruwei no Mori that everyone was talking about . i finally know what all the fuss was about .
i've never heard the beatles song , though . i'll have to go and listen to it now .
136 4 Unlike many of Murakami's other novels , this one has few or none of the fantastic elements we've come to expect from him . Rather , this is a coming of age story set in Japan in the late 1960s . Toru ( there's that name again ) Watanabe is a not-too-engaged drama student living his own personal drama in a world that seems to be perpetually on quaaludes .
I don't want to give the plot away , but in its simplest terms , the story is one of a romantic triangle ( quadrangle at times ) , where two of the sides are totally unconnected . It's a story of impossible promises . . In the end , it is a sweet tale of love , commitment , and growing up .
This book was originally published in English in Japan ( translated by Birnbaum , not Rubin ) , and has been long sought after here in the US . This edition is a new translation , and is Murakami's approved translation for sale outside of Japan .
137 4 I don't know why people are using such esoteric language to refer to a book that was so simple and straightforward .
Honesly , it really showed me that feelings of alienation or displacement aren't just an American phenomenon . Not everyone is happy and you just have to live with whatever comes your way .
Maybe I would think it was brilliant if I wasn't an Asian male .
142 4 This book never seems to reach its potential . On the one hand , there's an engaging plot , a likable protagonist that you wouldn't mind being friends with , an entertaining and egotistical friend ( Nagasawa ) that you can't get enough of and familiar feelings of growing up , longing and sadness that we can all relate to . But , on the other hand , there is oversimplified , almost dumbed-down , language ( I think you're very cute . ) and characters like Reiko and Naoko that you just want to shake and say : Get a grip . I get the impression that something is lost in the translation - that the words are much more beautiful in Japanese .
All of the scenes at the asylum are borderline bizarre . Wouldn't Watanabe , who is not at all familiar with life inside the home , find the strict rules strange and react with more hesitation and annoyance ( having all your private conversation in front of a stranger ) ? I couldn't determine whether Murakami was praising asylums for the ways they cure people and help them to get in touch with their emotions or criticizing them for creating intense dependency and fear in the patients .
Overall , Norwegian Wood is a good , quick read that is never boring , but never breathtaking either .
143 4 I have never read anything by Haruki Murakami but I was interested in reading more modern Asian literature and I kept passing by this book in the bookstore , so I decided to pick it up one day . The writing ( or to be precise the translated writing ) was exquiste because the setting and the characters came to life through the frank and yet poetic choice of words . The characters themselves were frighteningly realistic . They're completely flawed and they are even aware of their flaws . This made the romance between Watanabe and Naoko so beautifully tragic . Wantanabe would be a completely hollow man after Naoko's death if he didn't have Midori in his life because she gives him vitality through her spirit . I know that it would have to take Wantanabe a long time to get over the death and the very end does imply that he will move on with Midori but what made me mad was that he slept with Reiko before going back to Midori . He had made this big deal to Midori about having sex with her while Naoko was still in the mental hospital and Midori handled it the best way that she can . She is waiting for him to return back to her and they can move on with their lives in a more intimate way . Now I understand that Reiko serves as a reminder of Naoko . She was even wearing Naoko's clothes on that day but I don't think that having sex with Reiko brought any more closure to Naoko's death than if he had slept with Midori instead because having sex with either of them would not be the same as having sex with Naoko to him . However , if Watanabe had slept with Midori after he dealt with his feelings about Naoko's death , their connection would be stronger and the romance would be more compelling and thus made the implication of the two of them together moving on more real .
147 4 So when it comes to Haruki Murakimi there are two basic sets of fans . There are the Alfred Birnbaum fans and the Jay Rubin fans . Birnbaum translated much of Murakami's early work into English language editiions for sale in Japan , published to help Japanese students of English , through Kodansha . When Kodansha published two of Murakami's novels in America - - A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - - they stuck with the existing Birnbaum translations . When Knoff was putting together a collection of short stories , Jay Rubin wanted desperately to translate some of Murakami , and since he and Birnbaum gravitated to entirely different kinds of stories , they split the work between them . From that time on , Rubin has been Murakami's translator of choice and , occasionally alternating with Philip Gabriel , has been the one to interpret Murakami's work for the English-speaking world . When Norwegian Wood was eventually ( belatedly ) published in America and England , Rubin provided a new translation . And apparently it is the one Murakami prefers .
I do not . I've always found Rubin's translations a little dull . Not unreadable . Certainly not bad . But he's not one to go for the exciting word choice or the more spontaneous-sounding prose . His is a careful , graceful , but slightly grey style . I think it's to the detriment of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle , actually ( to be fair , he got the gig because Birnbaum asked for a break ; I believe had this not happen Birnbaum would have been chosen tranlator , and maybe remained the central interpreter of Murakimi in English . But of course , there's no way to know ) . That Rubin should be the less satisfying translator is odd , since in fact he admires Murakami almost slavishly . It's very clear in any talk or article you read by him on the subject of Murakami .
Norwegian Wood is to my mind Murakami's most successful novel . I'm not as crazy about his pop fantasy works . I think they're enjoyable , but the existenialism is more pleasantly trippy than frighteningly nightmarish , and the social criticism isn't all that penetrating . Here , by contrast , dealing with a realistic situations involving young adults , he really catches hold of something . Toru is a less pleasant character than many Murakami protagonists . Not as gentle , not as poetic , more unhappily alieanted ( as opposed to , say , the protagonist of A Wild Sheep Chase , who is romantically , appealingly alienated ) . I don't want to give the impression he's an anti-hero , that would be going too far . But he's a warts-and-all rather than a romanticized conception .
And I think this is true for all the characters . Naoko isn't just another quirky Murakami heroine , she's disturbed and it causes her much pain , in a way reminiscent of Catherine in Jules and Jim ( fittingly , as this novel takes place largely in the late 1960 ' s ) . Midori , the other girl in Toru's life , is more playfully eccentric , but she's also somewhat untrustworthy and selfish . These are real people , and they relate to the real world , and not just because there is not alternate-universe jumping or magical realist imagining , but because Murakami makes us believe in their situations , their pains , and their failings . Though the book brought down criticism from devoted fans when originally published in Japan , I think it is his most serious effort as a novelist , and his most daring .
And I think it's best in the translation Birnbaum penned for Japanese students of English . That translation is no longer in print , but copies are available . Sometimes they are quite expensive ( I paid over a hundred dollars for mine ) . But I think they are worth it .
Read in Rubin's easily obtainable edition , the novel is simply not as satisfying . That dependable , grey style again . Particularly in the longer chapters , it can make pushing forward a chore . But , of course , it's better than nothing .
148 4 This book is my second favorite by Murakami . I think his strength lies in his style of writing . As if you read Bukowski without swearing and vulgar stuff .
I can't add anything that is not written , and I don't wanna spoil it for you . Go get it .
151 4 Another reader remarked :
Read the Birnbaum translation a few years back . ,
Reviewer : A reader from Portland , OR USA
I don't know why people are using such esoteric language to
refer to a book that was so simple and straightforward .
Honesly , it really showed me that feelings of alienation or
displacement aren't just an American phenomenon . Not everyone is
happy and you just have to live with whatever comes your way .
I don't doubt it . I can describe the Birnbaum translation in two words : Aw Full . I originally read the novel in Japanese and enjoyed it very much . When I picked up the Birnbaum translation , I thought we had read completely different books . Where the original was subtle , poetic and sensitive , Birnbaum's translation was crude , vulgar and over-the-top . I hope Jay Rubin's translation is better , but I can't imagine it could be worse .
081 4 This was the third Haruki Murakami book I've read . The first two being A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance . This book is not quite as far out there as these two books , but it is still a very fun and smooth read . The book also can be pretty depressing because the main theme that seems to run through it is suicide , and believe me there is definately several suicides in this book . Toru Watanabe , the main character , seems to be a younger version of the unnamed protagonist in A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance , but instead of meeting The Sheep Man , an model , and a beautiful 13 - year-old psychic he tends to run into attractive young ladies who fall in love with him . Good Stuff . Many folks I have seen complain that there is nothing Japanese about Murakami's writing . These people of course are not Japanese , and it makes one think what do they expect people swinging samurai swords and dressed in kimonos reading passages from the Genji monogatari ? This book can also be a guide to repudiate several peoples misconceptions of modern japan .
096 4 A sense of frustration came over me as I got into Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood , and the sense both is and is not the novel's fault . I came into this novel after an obsession with Murakami's short stories , particularly the later collection After The Quake , a book whose contained ruminations on mortality , chance , loose threads , and personal awakenings were as haunting as novels ten times their lengths . Norwegian Wood came first , but in dealing with those themes on a grander scale , I must admit they were substantially less interesting - the airy metaphysics that gripped me before segued into characters whose motivations were blank or oblique here , and led to contrived interactions . Yet looking into my complaints on this novel , I find too that they come from a lack of cultural context - apparently it WAS fashionable in late 1960 ' s Japan for plaintive , overly analytical women to check themselves into designer depression insitutes ; apparently you COULD find women willing to ask you to masturbate to the thought of them and not blink an eye at it . I found those developments a sort of upper crust ennui that said , to me , very little about life , as well as finding the story's central love triangle to be enervating when it wasn't ridiculous . Still , I can't deny the story's mystical drive that evoked the thought and atmosphere of late 60 ' s existentialism , its erotic backbone , and its anxious compassion . I don't find Norwegian Wood to DO quite as much as the other Murakami works I've read - short and long - and in that , I think it's skippable . But there's no doubt that , at least by the end , I rooted for Toru's happiness and wondered where his life would take him . Which is to say , the elements didn't leave Murakami altogether .
043 4 What a wonderful read Norwegian Wood is . This was my first Murakami , so I cannot compare it with any of his other work , but I can compare it to other novels and this one is clearly a cut above most . It is the story of Toru , a young college student who becomes involved with the girlfriend of his best friend who , a year earlier , commited suicide . The two deal with their unspoken grief as best they can , both following utterly different paths . Toru loves the woman , Naoko , but for various reasons , their relationship cannot develop normally . We follow Toru for a few years in college - - a realistic portrait of a young man's journey toward adulthood . The story is narrated by Toru's 37 year old self . He hears Norwegian Wood in an airplane and memories of his youth come flooding back to him , so much so that he must tell his story . The story rings so true , it definitely took me back to that time in my life . The novel starts off a little slowly and then gradually builds to where you cannot put it down . It's a beautiful story filled with the pain , the awe , the confusion , the wonderment of being young and on one's own , of confronting life for the first time , of messing up , of growing up . Norwegian Wood is great . I highly recommend it .
072 4 the title seems especially appropriate - as with music , the impression of this book upon the emotional reader's memory is strong and lasting - and will almost certainly be recalled many times at the mere mention of a simple image or series of words .
101 4 I entered this book like many others after picking up on all the fuss , but with no real idea of who this Murakami guy and what it was he cared to say to me . I am so glad I listened ! This book has been making the rounds within my circle of friends faster than virus and I can only assume that it's interest has branched in the same way since it's publication ; you are not quite sure why it is you want to recommend it to people , but you are sure that you MUST . When asked what it is about , you are at a loss for words . . . You begin , well , nothing , really . . . but . . . then you stop , shake your head . . . With no need for words , you slide your copy across the counter to whoever it is you happen to be pitching it to . Leave it in his or her hands , knowing that it will do its magic sooner or later .
058 4 As one who lived in Japan for ten years , I can't remember how I came across this book , nor can I pinpoint exactly what makes this book so outstanding . Perhaps haunting would be a fitting adjective . Once finished , the reader is left with a feeling of melancholy , and caught up in the main character of the story . As always , Mr . Murakami's characters are extremely believable , fascinating , and reaffirms the fact that regardless of nation or culture , people are basically the same , the world over , and all wrestle with the same set of existential dilemmas
074 4 If you want to start Murakami I recommend this book first to read . He will bring you to a point where you never feel the ground and find yourself in a plot in which you never know where you head for . . . Murakami is so genius that any contemporary author could hardly reach the level of his success . read this book and see why
097 4 What a book . My advice is to start early in the day , and preferably not on a work night . The book just can't be put down ; I read it in one sitting ! Murakami is a gifted story teller , even now I feel like I read it just yesterday . Like the other reviewers I am sure I will revisit this again in the future .
118 4 In some ways I regret reading it as it sets such a high bar for everything that follows . The hardest thing to do is to take the tried and make it new . A love story ? Mundane right ? And no talking cats . A thrill ride of language to the last .
134 4 Very nice book . It tells , in a very delicate and sensitive way , the story of a Young japanese boy getting out of his teens and going into adulthood . Life is hard , it is very tough to assume responsibilities and to measure one's reach towards other people . Although there is not very uncommon about this boy's life , it is also very unique in the sense that all his emotions and experiences are his own and no one else's . Not very different from ourselves , anywhere in the world . This book is full of common life day to day poetry . Highly recommended .
070 4 A very unique writing style . At points during this book you need to reflect on what you have just read . Very good .
141 4 I can never fully explain to people why I like this book so much . . . there's just something about Murakami's style that makes his philosophizing about the nuances of life seem simultaneously unpretentious and universially true . The book deals with basically normal people who have been skewed by their circumstances , to the point where the reader can identify perfectly with the characters . Once again , I am unable to capture the subtle brilliance of this book , but it should be hunted down at all costs . Japan's A Catcher in the Rye
049 4 This book haunts me well after I have finished it . The charecters were so well developed to the point were I began to feel very strong emotions as the individuals in the book incurred victories and defeats . One of Murakami's best , as well as most contraversial . Despite the contraversy , this novel still bares his unique style , and I highly reccomend Norwegian Wood to anyone who can read .
144 4 Overwhelmingly beautiful . Breathtaking . I was taken to a wonderful place , and some part of me will always remain there . Haruki Murakami is a magical author , the kind that doesn't come along every generation . His stories and characters are so real and so alive that they become part of your consciousness . You remember them as though you had lived them yourself . When I'm 110 and in some nursing home , I'm going to think it was ME up on that rooftop with Midori , watching the fire and listening to her play her guitar ! What more do you want from a book ?
139 4 This is one of the greatest stories Haruki Murakami have ever written . At first , the story seemed to be a little boring . but the more you read it , the more you get intrigued with the world of Haruki Murakami . The book deserves 10 - time-reading ! I often wonder why the book attracts me so much . I believe this is about a pure love story .
