Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood is a simple coming-of-age tale, primarily set in 1969-70, when the author was attending university. The political upheavals and student strikes of the period form the novel's backdrop. But the focus here is the young Watanabe's love affairs, and the pain and pleasure and attendant losses of growing up. The collapse of a romance (and this is one among many!) leaves him in a metaphysical shambles:

I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, 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.

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


Exquisite pain   September 16, 2000
Mr. K. Mahoney (authortrek, London, UK)
27 out of 31 found this review helpful

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.


A haunting tale of love...   October 29, 1999
Alejandro Ayala (Arlington Hts., IL United States)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful

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!!


GET THE ALFRED BIRNBAUM TRANSLATION   August 17, 2002
17 out of 19 found this review helpful

It's not "Norwegian Wood" the story itself that I give 1 star to- it's the Jay Rubin translation. Over a decade ago I bought the Alfred Birnbaum translation, and I find Birnbaum to be a far superior translator to Rubin. Rubin's translation of certain sensual phrases from the Japanese turn into stale duds of sentences compared to Birnbaum's more heartfelt ones. Moreover, Rubin deletes words, sentences and paragraphs as he feels fit- Birnbaum does not make as vast edits as Rubin does. In this version of NW, Rubin writes that Murakami has approved this as the official translation. I'm sorry to say that although Murakami is my favorite author in the whole world, I have heard him lecture and his spoken English is remarkably terrible- he may know how to translate written English to Japanese really well, but he could use to learn about translating from his native language to English. I've rattled on long enough- but let it be said, Birnbaum's translation is far superior- and if you do not live in Japan, then go to your local Japanese bookstore in America like Kinokuniya or Asahiya and get it- leave this disgrace of a translation on the shelf.


'simply' beautiful...   October 23, 2000
Anil Acharya (Muscat, Oman)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful

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.