Question: How much Norwegian Wood would a Norwegian woodchuck chuck if a Norwegian woodchuck could chuck Norwegian Wood? Answer: The same amount as a Swedish woodchuck. So I read 160 pages of this novel. Then I hit a four-day Reader’s Block (also precipitated by problems in my personal life, but I’ll save those for Oprah) and read nothing. I called a librarian and explained the problem. She suggested I undergo an intense course of Murakami Avoidance Therapy (MAT), whereby I put down all Murakamis I am reading at that moment and read writers who are not Murakami. And you know what, I was cured! Those librarians know what they are talking about . . . even if they can’t string a sentence together. So I put Murakami down. It was a relief. Because those first 160 pages were so inconsequential and drab, so unremarkable and airy, I felt like I was walking through an airport terminal at 4AM on a Prozac-laden soporific in my slippers . . . walking towards the bookstore where Murakami’s Norwegian Wood sits on the bestseller list, to be read by people-too-busy-to-read-books who think this is the cutting edge of contemporary literature, and in translation too, so twice as chic and clever, despite nothing happening except a dull student who thinks he’s Holden Caulfield hanging out with a bland-but-mysterious possible lover, then a clichéd playboy who introduces him to casual sex, then another girl who almost shakes the novel back into life but no, zzzzzzzzzzzzz. And the translator sort of loves the phrase sort of . . . people are sort of people and kind of humans, but are more insert-faux-poetic-description here, or perhaps sort of human after all, no? So thanks, librarian! MAT has saved me from four more hours of mediocrity! Hug a librarian tomorrow!

Not as profound as The Windup Bird Chronicle or as absurd as Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Woods still works and impresses as a love story with splendid writing. They HAVE to give Murakami a Nobel now that Roth is gone. He is sooooo talented.


Fino's Murakami Reviews - Novels
Hear the Wind Sing (1979/1987-2015)
Pinball, 1973 (1980/1985-2015)
A Wild Sheep Chase (1982/1989)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985/1991)
Norwegian Wood (1987/1989-2000)
Dance Dance Dance (1988/1994)
South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992/2000)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995/1997)
Sputnik Sweetheart (1999/2001)
Kafka on the Shore (2002/2005)
After Dark (2004/2007)
1Q84 (2010/2011)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013/2014)
Killing Commendatore (2017/2018)

Fino's Murakami Reviews - Short Story Collections and Misc
The Elephant Vanishes (1993)
After the Quake (2000/2002)
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006)
Men Without Women (2014/2017)
First Person Singular (2020/2021)
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007/2008)

Cuando comencé a leer este libro, pensé que sería una novela de amor, pero creo que va más allá de eso: Habla de enamorarse, uerer a alguien como amiga, como pareja, como hermana. También hable del amor en sí, y quizás cuestionarse qué es el amor. El amor a uno mismo, el estado de ánimo de cada uno, la etapa que estoy viviendo en mi vida relacionado con mi edad, mi historia de vida, mis estudios, mis amistades... y todo eso se resume en cómo puedo manejar mi vida cuando hay emociones fuertes.
Admito que cuando terminé de leer el libro me quedé pensando unos 15 minutos y analizándolo. Cuando leí el final no quedé conforme, pero después de darle unas vueltas a la historia y los personajes con el contexto, solo digo "Wow!".
He leído libros de murakami anteriormente y este es más "simple", pero realista... y eso me gusta. Gente con problemas, depresión, perdición, suicidios, satisfacciones superficiales, locuras... todo por lo que muchos de nosotros hicimos cuando éramos jóvenes y nos creíamos los reyes del mundo.
No sé por qué, pero mientras leís este libro quería tomar un trago, estar en un jardín con lindo clima primaveral, haciendo un asado y vivir tranquilamente mi vida. Me dio una sensación de paz y satisfacción y no tengo idea por qué.

Mención muy especial a toda la buena música a la cual se hace mención en este libro. La música es muy importante para mí y es un plus muy grande. Muy bueno todo.

in every other respect, he's a great writer. but there aint no way he's had sex in real life because what was all THAT

یکی از دوستان در ریویوو کتاب نوشته بود: «اینقدر همه چیز این کتاب رو دوست داشتم که میخوام گریه کنم» و از اونجایی که مرد برای هضم دلتنگیاش گریه نمیکنه، قدم میزنه، من می‌خوام برم قدم بزنم. داستان از جایی شروع میشه که شخصیت اصلی داستان که راوی داستانه، یک آهنگی به گوشش میخوره و این باعث میشه خاطرات هجده سال پیش به یادش بیاد و شروع کنه به تعریف کردن داستان خودش در نوجوانی و جوانی. داستان پر از تعریف روابط آدمها با جزئیاته و شبیه به یک بیوگرافی تعریف شده با محور خودکشی، عشق و سکس.ه
اگر همگام با کتاب، نسخه‌ی انگلیسی هم دم دستتون باشه و چک‌ کنید قسمت‌های سانسور شده رو بخونید به فهم بهتر داستان کمک می‌کنه چون سانسور زیاد داره و اتفاقات سانسوری در داستان تاثیر به سزایی داره.ه

پ.ن: حسم بعد از خوندن کتاب؟ غم و تنهایی

ho postato questo che mi sembra il suo primo libro che lessi. Murakami non si giudica bene da una pagina, ma da almeno un libro, se non di più. egli sta prima di tutto nell'atmosfera, per alcuni respingente, non per me. non sono d'accordo con chi lo paragona a uno scrittore sentimentale o facile, perché è semplice e accessibile, ma non meno profondo, mai banale. i suoi dialoghi sono spesso bellissimi. forse seleziona i suoi lettori, tra cui mi annovero. quando leggo un suo libro porgo l'orecchio ai rumori del giorno, come direbbe kraus, come se fossero gli accordi dell'eternità. quello che ti entrerà nelle orecchie risuonerà: l'arte di Murakami è quella di trasformare alcuni rumori in segnali alchemici, strane vibrazioni. sempre sul punto di dissolvere l'insolubile. non è un caso che faccia presa sugli adolescenti, dissolutori per eccellenza. se Murakami riscrivesse i libri di Harry Potter, diventerebbero libri interessanti.

"Those were strange days, now that I look back at them. In the midst of life, everything revolved around death."

Welcome to Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami; a tale of a bunch of suicidal perverts in Japanese universities.

No, honestly. This book is essentially about two things: sex and death. There are hidden meanings everywhere, but when you cut away that and go to the core, that’s what’s left. And my, does the book have a lot of sex. Weird forms of sex. And a lot of death. And not in a good way either.

But it’s also a very powerful book. It doesn’t tell any grand and special story, but rather indulges in an exploration of the human mind, and the stories hidden in the ordinary pasts of the ordinary people around us. The writing is nothing special, but I somehow found it very captivating. There were times when I found it very difficult to stop.

Part of what made the book stronger, was that the characters were so easy to relate to. All of them had aspects, positive as well as negative, that I could recognise in myself and those around me. My favourites were Nagasawa...

"I may be a selfish bastard, but I'm incredibly cool about shit like that. I could be a Zen saint."

and Naoko...

"That song can make me feel so sad," said Naoko. "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."

In the end, I don’t know what to say about this book. I liked it well enough at times. I hated it at times. I felt indifferent about it at times. If this book were representative of Murakami’s works, I would never read another by him. However, relax, Murakami fans. I know that it isn’t.

Am I glad I read this book? Would I recommend it? The obvious answer that comes to mind for both questions is no. It can be very depressing, and actually took an emotional toll on me. And having finished, I am left without the feeling that this was a must-read book. It wasn’t particularly good, and it didn’t send an important message. But for some inexplicable reason, it was still worth reading. In a way.

At least until the end. When I finished the book, I ended up wishing I had never read it. And I think I stand by that after some thinking. While it wasn’t the worst book I’ve read, I can honestly say that I hate it now. I know that many people love it, which is totally okay. But please respect that this book hit me in the gut with full force. It almost constantly switched between making me feel angry, sad, annoyed and disgusted. Little else.

Other than that, we can’t always explain why we feel the way we do about something, books included. Sometimes it’s best to leave it behind, and move on.

"The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living."

This one is as dark as your fears.

Murakami's writing brings me a kind of comfort. No, not the nature-painting-classical music kind of comfort. It's the comfort I get from seeing the transparency of all the ugliness of the dark side of us in our beingness. However dark and deadly his writing seems to be, all I can feel is the subtle pink and peach hues of tenderness while reading his books. This is the first book of Murakami that I have ever read.

There's a lot of dark themes that are represented in this story. Mental illness in all its detailed description can be seen through one of the main characters. The story is so real but it seems like I have been prepared to accept everything I was about to read. The characters are totally unapologetic. Character development is so well done. The pangs of being a human being - I can feel it real while reading this one. It will always be difficult to express how I feel about a full-fledged Murakami book but all I can write in details is about how his books and writing make me feel. And that too incomplete everytime. I don't enjoy reading sad themes in books until and unless it make me feel something significant. I don't consciously look for books which will make me feel lost but Murakami's writing always make me float and fly. And this has become a habit. I crave for his writing. I crave for his books once in a while. I particularly enjoy his writing when I feel like I am one person living in the midst of everyone and everything else that's going on but not feeling a part of them.

His books are not for my entertainment. His books are not for enjoyment. His books are necessary to feel I am a human being after all. His books are meant to make me feel life is what it is. His writing makes me feel there's beauty in pain and death and heartbreaks. The kind of beauty only Murakami can make me feel.

Why the one star less for this book?
I felt cheated towards the end of the book. Something impulsive happened which I cannot digest even after two years of reading it.

But mind you, this one ends well. Beautifully.

This novel is easily one of my all-time favorite books. I tried writing a review, but it felt so inadequate compared to others, I actually deleted it. After a lot of rethinking, I'm hoping I can finally do justice to Murakami's work.

The title itself, Norwegian Wood, initially made me think of loneliness. Being alone in a vast forest just feels isolating. But the book evoked more sadness and helplessness than simple loneliness.

It's named after the Beatles song, which has very simple lyrics: A guy meets a girl, they hang out at her place, and he ends up crashing in the bathroom while she goes to work. Murakami takes that feeling and expands it, making it palpable – the scent of the sea, the gentle breeze, the feel of skin, the dust, the hazy nights, a vague longing, and almost dreamlike imagery. This creates Watanabe's world. It's a subtle, almost indescribable feeling – hazy yet real, alluring yet hard to explain. Norwegian Wood itself seems to symbolize that very feeling.

Some call it a love story, others a realist novel. It's a bit of both, really. Murakami himself doesn't consider it just a love story, and I understand why. The core of the story is about love, but the way it's told has a strong realist element.

The story follows Watanabe, a college student in 1960s Tokyo. He's dealing with the suicide of his best friend, Kizuki, and the impact it has on Naoko, who was close to both of them. Their shared grief leads to a complex relationship.

Watanabe eventually finds himself in a new relationship with Midori, who is vibrant and optimistic. However, his feelings for Naoko linger, creating a classic love triangle. The novel explores themes of loss, love, loneliness, and the search for meaning in a world marked by death.

Set in Japan during the '60s and '70s, it portrays the often-confused love lives of young adults. Post-war Japan was experiencing rapid economic growth, and the social atmosphere was similar to the West in many ways. Sexual openness, even promiscuity, was common. This context is essential for understanding the characters' choices, which might seem shocking if viewed through a modern lens.

Like young people in America at the time, Japanese youth struggled with a sense of emptiness and nihilism, partly fueled by the hippie movement. Depression, mental illness, and suicide rates were rising. This is reflected in the story's pervasive sense of death and adds to the overall sadness.

The novel deals frankly with Japanese sexual and suicide culture. "Sex" can represent so many things – emotions, ethics, and more. Many writers struggle to depict sex in a way that's erotic but not vulgar, but Murakami gets it just right. His descriptions are objective and straightforward; sex is presented as a part of life, sexy but not gratuitous.

A key theme is the "separation of sex and love." Love isn't always the traditional merging of body and spirit. Naoko clearly loves Nagasawa, but her body resists him. Conversely, she may not truly love Watanabe, but she's physically comfortable with him. Because sex carries emotional weight, Naoko questions the authenticity of her feelings. This disconnect is likely a significant factor in her eventual suicide.

Although there's a love triangle, the book isn't structured like a typical love story. It's less about the relationships between the 3 and more about the characters' inner thoughts, feelings, and how they change over time.

Watanabe has a certain quality that attracts women. He's a reader, a music lover, a thinker, and someone who appreciates solitude. He's both sensitive and rational, is obsessed with The Great Gatsby, and, most importantly, is genuinely sincere with himself and others. He loves both Naoko and Midori, but Hatsumi is probably his ideal. She's barely in the book, but she comes across as quiet, rational, humorous, kind, and elegant.

Hatsumi represents a kind of youthful longing for purity. Watanabe has said he longs for purity, but those who embody it are all gone. Nagasawa's death, and later Hatsumi's suicide, represent a loss of that ideal. This is why Watanabe breaks off his friendship with Kizuki after Hatsumi's death – because Kizuki, in Murakami's words, is "morally bankrupt." Gatsby, in The Great Gatsby, is another example of someone who endures hardship but maintains his purity. Watanabe's pursuit of purity is part of his own personal growth.

You might wonder how Watanabe can be considered "pure" when he sleeps with multiple women. It's important to remember that these encounters happen before he's serious about Naoko. Even with Midori, he holds back until he's sure of his feelings. Once he's committed to someone, his attitude toward sex changes, and he takes on a sense of responsibility.

Midori is a character I particularly like. She's quirky, kind, sincere, optimistic, strong, and passionate. She goes to a prestigious girls' school and lives a difficult life. She deals with her parents' illnesses and deaths, family burdens, and the pain of loss. Yet, she remains remarkably optimistic. Her words and actions exude strength and youthful energy. She saves money meant for a bra to buy cooking utensils, prepares delicious meals, and jokingly says her father emigrated to Uruguay instead of being ill. Her thoughts jump around, she boldly flirts with Watanabe, and she's genuinely sincere with others, which I find incredibly endearing.

The novel's ending isn't in the final paragraph, but a few paragraphs earlier, when Watanabe, now an international journalist, hears Norwegian Wood at an airport. He thinks of all the people he's lost and is overcome with tears. He can't let go, and he realizes that Naoko never truly loved him. So, he turns to writing and records his memories of her.

Murakami uses a documentary-like style and poetic language to depict young people's search for love and individuality in a complex modern world. He goes beyond typical love stories and explores deeper themes of life.

Despite its heaviness, the novel is a classic for a reason. It resonates with young readers, perhaps because it captures their own uncertainties and anxieties. But the real magic is in Murakami's masterful use of language. (I read it in Chinese translation, by the way.) His writing is vivid and precise, bringing the characters, their actions, and their emotions to life. Every nuance, every flaw, is perfectly captured. This is the mark of a truly great writer, with passages that are meant to be reread and savored.

5 / 5 stars

My other reviews of Murakami's Work:
The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Norwegian Wood
1Q84
Hear the Wind Sing
Kafka on the Shore
Sputnik Sweetheart
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
South of the Border, West of the Sun
After Dark

Before I begin may it be known that this was not my first Murakami. I read Kafka on the Shore and loved it. I read Wind-up Bird Chronicle and loved that too. So I got to thinking that maybe I should read the book that made him famous, the book that everyone in Japan is said to have read, that compelled Murakami to flee the country to escape the media attention. How disappointed I was when I finished. Also, I wrote this on iPad so the punctuation and capitalisation is off. I tried to fix all the auto correct but I may have missed a few.

The characters in this book are all loathsome. Toru Watanabe, the main character, is a self-pitying man looking back on his days at university in Tokyo during the student riots in 1969-1970 when he supposedly "fell in love". He attempts to paint himself as a "nice guy", deluded into believing himself to be honest and who has "never lied in his life" (an idea which is refuted several times in the novel. E.g. When midori asks him whether he slept  with Naoko since and he replies "we didn't do anything" - yeah, 'cause people generally rub up naked against each other and give blow jobs to anyone and everyone. You know, that's nothing. Also, bottom of page 350. Yeah) which often came off as whiny whenever he "felt bad" over the fact that he was not self-entitled to screwing people over and actually felt guilt (although this guilt only tended to manifest itself awhile later when he actually got around to thinking about people other than himself). One of many puzzling traits was his insistence at naming every single book and song that he was reading/listening to despite most of them being easily interchangeable, replaceable and irrelevant seeing as they had no correlation whatsoever to the plot or character development (a few exceptions being the song 'Norwegian Wood' [obviously], Das Kapital in relation with the setting of the student riots and the time, and there was a part where Toru was comparing himself to "Jay Gatsby watch(ing) that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night" [although I cringed at the feeble struggle to relate this tacky soap-operatic tale of Toru's wuv for Naoko's body to a symbol signifying Gatsby's obsession to repossess and re-enact what has evolved into a doomed and glittering illusion and the idea that the dream has surpassed the real and is better experienced from a distance]). Seriously, the number of smug name dropping probably extended the book a few dozen pages and you would think that someone who read so much would have at least developed even the smallest amount of empathy but, for all I know, Toru Watanabe spent all his time reading with his eyes glazed over thinking and feeling sorry for himself that he has to feel guilt over using girls as rebound.

What was even more depressing about this book was that every single female character was weak and dependent. From I'm-pretending-to-do-the-tough-girl-act-but-in-a-cute-subservient-way Midori who is needy and whiny (she has reasons for being moody and throwing tantrums but there are absolutely no excuses for being cruel and manipulative which is what she does to win Toru's heart) to I-don't-love-you-but-you-want-sex-and-blowjobs-and-I-can't-say-no-to-men Naoko to I'm-so-independent-and-empowering-and-independent-but-I-have-a-"small stomach"-and-can't-eat-much-*coughi'minsecureaboutmyselfcough* Reiko. Midori, however, is the character who ticks the generic box of 'being different', a thin veil attempting to hide the fact that she is actually the fantasy girlfriend of lot of insecure men. She is cute, she is kinky, desperate to sexually please men, is interested in "fuck(ing) like crazy", she is friendly and social with a lot of people, she cooks good food, cleans and is a hard worker and shows that she can slavishly take care of men ie domestic goddess. "I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I  tell you I want to eat strawberry shortbread. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortbread out to me. And I say I don't want it any more and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for." Are we supposed to find this endearing? Are we supposed to read this in wonder and awe and repeat to ourselves what Toru says afterward: "I've never met a girl like you"?

The thing is, it is in Murakami's style to present a lot of truisms and while in his other works, they are intertwined with the surreal in such a way that it doesn't matter whether they are huge generalisations or just really cheesy because they come from dreamlike layers echoing the absurd and the interior monologue of the character and so it isn't preachy, just something to think about. In Norwegian Wood, they are brash and blunt. The characters make sweeping and often blindly hypocritical and prejudiced assumptions disguised in the appearance of truth mostly about how they are so 'different' and everyone else are such boring sheep (in predictable hipster style: "liek omigod, i'm, liek, sooo unique and different?!?! Liek omigod, my tiny brain never thought of that!!!!") such as "never again would she have that self-centred beauty that seems to take its own independent course in adolescent girls and no one else". So ALL adolescent girls are all self-centred (sorry, self-centred beauty - like totally a compliment!!! *eyeroll*), huh, and Toru here wants US to think that HE is so exceptional when he manages to group half the population into (at one point) possessing a particular trait? There are a lot of "I don't know, I'm just a girl" moments but I reaaaaally don't want to have to open the book again and go look for them.

I could go on and on about how odious Naoko and Reiko were but this review is getting really long and all I've been talking about are the characters.

The plot, in all its boring and barely existing glory:
Toru Watanabe runs into Naoko, the girlfriend of Kizuki, his high school best friend (who had suicided a couple of years previous), and realises she has a hawt body. On her birthday he rapes (sorry, "makes love" to) her while she's distraught over Kizuki and she runs away to a mental asylum to get better. Toru whinges about loneliness. He meets Midori. Everything gets dragged out about how they are both sad and lonely. Toru visits Naoko at the asylum and meets her roommate, Reiko. Toru chooses Midori over naoko because she is a "real, live girl". Naoko commits suicide. Toru and Reiko fuck in her memory.

Half the book is whinge and whine, the other half objectifies women.     

Positives:

1. Murakami writes beautifully. It's as simple as that. Norwegian Wood is what you would get if you stamped a picture of the ceiling of the Sistine chapel onto a pair of crocs.

2. My mum likes the Beatles song and I've also had the song stuck in my head since reading this book.

3. It's over.

Turns out I can't find a SINGLE fuck to give. It takes forever to start, the characters are bland and absolutely unrealistic, they don't sound real, the sex is so unhealthy and weird and awkward, the narrator is pretentious as fuck, the dialogues are painful, and the plot -- huh, wait, there's no plot.

So yeah. Big, fat DNF.

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