{"id":956,"date":"2020-02-24T03:36:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T03:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/?p=956"},"modified":"2020-02-24T14:37:08","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T14:37:08","slug":"book-review-norwegian-wood-by-haruki-murakami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/2020\/02\/24\/book-review-norwegian-wood-by-haruki-murakami\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review – Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn’t give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about myself again. It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. The scenery was the last thing on my mind.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t usually read books like Norwegian Wood<\/em>. I\u2019d been wanting to become acquainted with Haruki Murakami novels for a while \u2014 1Q84, Kafka On the Shore<\/em> \u2014 and it happened that my library had a copy of Norwegian Wood<\/em>. I\u2019d heard that it was a good novel, so I figured, \u201cWhat the heck, let\u2019s see what you got, Murakami\u201d and picked it up.<\/p>\n

Norwegian Wood<\/em> is set in Japan during the late 1960s\/early 1970s, and follows a young man named Toru Watanabe, a university student living in Tokyo following the suicide of his only friend in high school, Kizuki. Another prominent character throughout the novel is Naoko, Kizuki\u2019s girlfriend. It is through Kizuki\u2019s death that Toru and Naoko are connected and begin to find solace with each other, despite each character carrying their own baggage.<\/p>\n

To be honest, the plot of Norwegian Wood<\/em> sounds mundane and simple when I try to describe it, so it might feel like a cop-out to say the novel embodies life itself. Many scenes are comprised of Toru going to class, working, speaking with people, and having various sexual encounters. Toru\u2019s life is by no means extraordinary nor does he possess traditional hero qualities of being valiant or supremely intelligent. But there\u2019s something very human about this novel that gives Norwegian Wood<\/em> its charm. Murakami\u2019s voice is definitely the influence behind this; I found his subtle but precise choice of words and the nonchalant quality of his characters endearing, and at times even laughed aloud, despite the novel being a far cry from a comedy.<\/p>\n

“The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living.”<\/em><\/p>\n

While Norwegian Wood <\/em>is set in the past \u2014 not just in regards to our time, but also middle-aged Toru reflecting on his youth \u2014 the questions and themes it raises are timeless ones that affect anyone no matter where they live: who will we lose in our life? Who will you love and surround yourself with?\u00a0 How will I live my life, but also how will I cope when I see others\u2019 lives end?<\/p>\n

Toru grapples with all of these questions during his university years, so arguably this is a coming of age novel, though I\u2019d also classify it to be New Adult\/Realistic Fiction. As a college student myself, I could identify with much of what Murakmai was bringing to the table, the idea of loss and pain and recovery and \u2014 a stage many people don\u2019t like to acknowledge \u2014 relapse<\/em>. Whether it\u2019s witnessing others spiral out of control, despite loving them, or failing your expectations.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t go so far as to say any of these characters are likeable, per se, but they felt like realistic people. There\u2019s Toru, of course, who is much to himself but reflective of the world around him and the people encompassing it. He carries a quiet energy, which I thought made him a suitable lead. There\u2019s the mysterious Naoko, the girl whose past overlaps with Toru\u2019s, and the girl that more or less is Toru\u2019s love-interest throughout the novel. I don\u2019t at all believe Murakami wrote Toru and Naoko\u2019s relationship to embody a healthy one, but to indicate how mental health takes its toll a relationship, the stress and pain of seeing someone, namely Naoko, become unstable.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also Midori, who can function as a foil to Naoko. While Naoko is elusive, Midori is a brash university student attending the same school as Toru, who takes a liking to him.\u00a0 There’s Reiko Ishida, Naoko\u2019s roommate whom Toru comes to meet later in the novel. Other side-characters gave the novel some flavor, such as Toru\u2019s odd roommate whom he nicknames \u201cStormtrooper,\u201d Nagasawa, Toru\u2019s arrogant and rich university friend. No character felt like a throwaway nor an afterthought. I think with each character, they helped carry the idea of the masks we might put up to other people, whether it\u2019s a mask of arrogance or competence or innocence. Everyone has a past, a skeleton or two in their closet that they\u2019ll only reveal to those whom they feel safe enough to feel vulnerable around.<\/p>\n

For a while, I\u2019d questioned why this novel is titled Norwegian Wood<\/em>, after the Beatles song. It\u2019s mentioned only once in the beginning in the novel, and out of curiosity I looked up the lyrics. <\/a>I definitely think this song ties into Toru and Naoko\u2019s relationship and bittersweet\/melancholic melody of the novel. Music itself plays a prominent theme throughout the novel, with constant song references from Toru, and even Toru working at a record store. I think the reason for music being such a big theme throughout Norwegian Wood<\/em> is that music is timeless. Different generations can resonate with different sounds and lyrics, and music is something we may listen to cope, to bury ourselves away from reality, even if just for a minute. Music can also be a transformative process, one song can move us or make us remember bittersweet and painful times.<\/p>\n

Really, my main gripe with the novel is how it ends. Not to spoil it, though it didn\u2019t quite feel like an ending to me. As I reflect on Norwegian Wood<\/em>, however, I\u2019m beginning to think more and more that this \u201copen\u201d ending of sorts was Murakami\u2019s point. That life itself has no ending or our endings aren\u2019t so conclusive. I am curious about the progression of Toru from university to his adult self looking back on his memories, but that will always remain a mystery. I think it\u2019s fitting, as with the people we meet in our lives, we don\u2019t know every detail of their story.<\/p>\n

Is this my favorite book?\u00a0 Not necessarily, though I\u2019d recommend others to read it. The messages in this book aren\u2019t necessarily easy pills to swallow, so if you\u2019re intending for a happy-go-lucky read, then I\u2019d probably skip\u00a0 Norwegian Wood<\/em>. It\u2019s the type of book I wouldn\u2019t reread, but it\u2019s a novel that made me ponder or revisit plenty of fundamental questions. Bottom line, we will lose the people we love, friends and lovers will fall out of our lives, and there will be mistakes we make in our lives or watch others make towards other people that we won\u2019t be able to rewrite, because that\u2019s the power of time. It can only go forward, not back. The characters interacting with each other are nostalgic, they do recount the times that made them to be the person they are today. And that journey of transformation isn\u2019t easy, but reading about it made these characters visceral. I am definitely still interested in reading more of Murakami\u2019s work, as I think his writing is beautiful and something to cherish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn’t give a damn about the scenery that Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[140,85,145,142,93,144,89,143],"class_list":["post-956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-reviews","tag-bookreview","tag-books","tag-harukimurakami","tag-japaneseliterature","tag-literature","tag-norwegianwood","tag-reading","tag-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}