ノルウェイの森 = Noruwei No Mori = Norwegian wood (1987), Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

A 37-year-old Toru Watanabe has just arrived in Hamburg, Germany. When he hears an orchestral cover of the Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood", he is suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of loss and nostalgia.

He thinks back to the 1960's, when so much happened that touched his life. Watanabe, his classmate Kizuki, and Kizuki's girlfriend Naoko are the best of friends.

Kizuki and Naoko are particularly close and feel as if they are soulmates, and Watanabe seems more than happy to be their enforcer.

This idyllic existence is shattered by the unexpected suicide of Kizuki on his 17th birthday. Kizuki's death deeply touches both surviving friends; Watanabe feels the influence of death everywhere, while Naoko feels as if some integral part of her has been permanently lost.

The two of them spend more and more time together going for long walks on Sundays, although feelings for each other are never clarified in this interval.

On the night of Naoko's 20th birthday, she feels especially vulnerable and they have sex, during which Watanabe realizes that she is a virgin. Afterwards, Naoko leaves Watanabe a letter saying that she needs some time apart and is quitting college to go to a sanatorium. These events are set against a backdrop of civil unrest.

The students at Watanabe's college go on strike and call for a revolution. Inexplicably, the students end their strike and act as if nothing had happened, which enrages Watanabe as a sign of hypocrisy. Watanabe is befriended by a fellow drama classmate, Midori Kobayashi. She is everything that Naoko is not — outgoing, vivacious, and supremely self-confident.

Despite his love for Naoko, Watanabe finds himself attracted to Midori as well. Midori reciprocates his feelings, and their friendship grows during Naoko's absence.

Watanabe visits Naoko at her secluded mountain sanatorium near Kyoto. There he meets Reiko Ishida, an older patient there who has become Naoko's confidante.

During this and subsequent visits, Reiko and Naoko reveal more about their past: Reiko talks about the cause of her downfall into mental illness and details the failure of her marriage, while Naoko talks about the unexpected suicide of her older sister several years ago.

When he returns to Tokyo, Watanabe unintentionally alienates Midori through both his lack of consideration of her wants and needs, and his continuing thoughts about Naoko.

He writes a letter to Reiko, asking for her advice about his conflicted affections for both Naoko and Midori. He does not want to hurt Naoko, but he does not want to lose Midori either.

Reiko counsels him to seize this chance for happiness and see how his relationship with Midori turns out. A later letter informs Watanabe that Naoko has killed herself.

Watanabe, grieving and in a daze, wanders aimlessly around Japan, while Midori — with whom he hasn't kept in touch — wonders what has happened to him.

After about a month of wandering, he returns to the Tokyo area and gets in contact with Reiko, who leaves the sanatorium to come visit.

The middle-aged Reiko stays with Watanabe, and they have sex. It is through this experience, and the intimate conversation that Watanabe and Reiko share that night, that he comes to realise that Midori is the most important person in his life.

After he sees Reiko off, Watanabe calls Midori to declare his love for her.

Midori asks, "Where are you now?", and the novel ends with Watanabe pondering that question.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و ششم ماه نوامبر سال 2014میلادی

عنوان: ‏‫جنگل نروژی؛ نویسنده: هاروکی موراکامی، موضوع: داستان‌های نویسندگان ژاپن - سده 20م

مترجم: مهدی غبرايی، تهران، کتاب نشر نیکا‏‫، 1392، در ‏‫400ص؛ ‏‏شابک 9786005906950؛

مترجم: معصومه نتاج عمرانی، نشر تهران، نوای مکتوب‏‫، 1394، در ‏‫384ص؛ ‏شابک 9786009576005؛

یک کارگردان «تایوانی»، به نام «تران آن هونگ»، با اقتباس از همین کتاب فیلمی سینمایی ساخته است

جنگل نروژی، نام داستانی عاشقانه، درباره ی بزرگ شدن، زندگی کردن، و درگذشتن است؛ داستانی ساده، که با احساس روایت می‌شود، داستانی درباره ی عشق، احساسات، زندگی، مرگ، هنر، آزادی، و مسئولیت‌ پذیری است؛ داستان عشقی پر پیچ و خم که میان «واتانابه» و دیگر دوستانش در جریان بوده است؛ در آغاز داستان، راوی وارد «آلمان» میشود، و در فرودگاه، با شنیدن موسیقی، به گذشته بازمیگردد، به هجده سال پیش، و به تصاویر یک دیدار، و سپس تصویرها در هم پیچ و تاب میخورند، و سالهای رو به بیست سالگی خودش را، بازگو میکند، سالهای رشد ذهنی و جسمی، آشنایی با پیرامون و خودکشی نزدیکترین دوستان؛ عنوان این رمان «موراکامی» برگرفته از آلبومی از گروه موسیقی «بیتلز» است؛ ورای داستان عشقی پیچیده ای که میان «واتانابه» و دیگران در جریان است، «موراکامی» تلاش میکند تا مراحل رشد اندیشه های «واتانابه» و دیگر شخصیتها از داستان کتاب «جنگل نروژی» را به تصویر بکشد

نقل از آغاز داستان: (سی و هفت ساله بودم، آنوقت که توی صندلیم، در هواپیمای بزرگ 747، در میان انبوهی از ابر، که فرودگاه هامبورگ را پوشانده بود غوطه خوردم.؛ باران سرد نوامبر زمین را خیسانده بود، همه چیز هوای غم ‌انگیز چشم ‌انداز فلیمیش منطقه‌ ای در شمال کشور بلژیک را به عاریه گرفته بود خدمه ی فرودگاه، در بارانی‌هاشان، مه حلقه زده بر فراز ساختمان فرودگاه، یک بیلبورد تبلیغاتی بی ام و پس... باز هم آلمان)؛ پایان نقل

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 29/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 07/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

The Beginning heralds the end. The End initiates a beginning. In between lies a cycle. A cycle where words rain, feelings gush like a river towards the ocean called life, and the ocean hides the abyss of uncertainty. You just sway along this journey, along with Murakami.

"Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right"

Sometimes when you are sitting in peace, ensconced in the metaphorical warmth of a house and you hear the clock chime, making you realize that the time is running fast. It saddens you and sends a disturbing ripple on the lake of peace. Events. Murakami is a master horologist.

"And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown
So I lit a fire, isn't it good, norwegian wood."

Ever get a feeling that someone has tapped into your thoughts by sending a probe in your mind? Dr. Murakami specializes in this. He evaluates your questions, analyzes your thoughts and dynamically modifies his words to answer some of the questions, at the same time planting some more. Making you stop and think.

"I'll get to you somehow
Until I do I'm telling you so you'll understand"

Who is Toru Watanabe? To me, he felt like a mid way between the protagonist of Camus' Outsider and Holden Scholfield.

"But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round."

There is a surreal feeling hinting at an underlining, hidden meaning or information whenever Murakami explains or describes even the mundane things. The characters are fully developed representations of life and it's meanings. Watanabe (a paper boat on the water, Kizuki and Naoko's link to the outside world, observer, listener), Kizuki (conversationalist, gregarious within a closed circle), Naoko (perfect companion, uncertain, devoted), Hatsumi (patience, dedication), Nagasawa (flamboyance), Reiko (experience), The Ami Hostel (a world within world where accepting yourself makes you fit in, where reality is identified with in a much better sense than the real world), Midori (style, innocent naughtiness, pragmatic), Midori's Dad (a man burdened by the system), Storm Trooper (the scape goat)... Everyone represents some part of the human behavior or trait or characteristic. They aren't just characters. But then to quote from the book:
"I can't tell whether this kind of analysis is trying to simplify the world or complicate it."

"People are strange, when you're a stranger."

Nagasawa is Tyler Durden. You do not talk about...
"Neither of us is interested, essentially, in anything but ourselves. OK, so I'm arrogant and he's not, but neither of us is able to feel any interest in anything other than what we ourselves think or feel or do. That's why we can think about things in a way that's totally divorced from anybody else. That's what I like about him. The only difference is that he hasn't realized this about himself, and so he hesitates and feels hurt."

"All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?"

You tend to lose your way in the dialogues. Where induced feelings and your own feelings seem to resonate. Beautiful articulation of words and meanings. The way fine whiskey dissolves your blurry past and sharpens the most heartfelt memories.

"Suddenly, I'm not half to man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly."

Sometimes within all the mundane stuff comes a hard hitting line. Hard hitting and deeply poignant. Makes you go back and read it again. Just to realize the gravity of the meaning. Leaves you cold.

"For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder"

"So, if you understand me better, what then?" Is this book a commentary on how we look at things around us, try to understand some, understand few of the some, try to adapt, but eventually throw the towel and move on? Never trying to simplify us, our intentions, our motives, or our feelings? Like I just have used the words "intention" and "motives" without really trying to fathom the difference between them. Always inclined towards a complexity that hides and cozily blankets our insecurities and fallacies?

"Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, Wasting Away."

Love. Love is something where reason stops.

"Even a rat will choose the least painful route if you shock him enough"
"But rats don't fall in love."

-
I have cited some verses from the Beatles' songs (One of them Doors) mentioned in the book. They form the real review. My words are just fillers.

n  “Letters are just pieces of paper,” I said. “Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.”n

While on a flight headed to Germany, Toru Watanabe hearing the melody of The Beatles ‘Norwegian Wood’ starts to remember his youth spent in Tokyo. A time of friendships, passion, loss and desire.

Written as a flashback, Norwegian Wood revolves mostly around three central characters - Toru, Naoko and Midori. The story is filled with atmosphere, history and references to music and literature. While this is a story about love and the many shapes it takes, it's also about loss, mortality and the struggle to continue living among death.

“Something inside me had dropped away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern.”

Murakami's writing is soft, lyrical and effortless, and the story itself is heart-warming, strangely romantic and heartbreaking at the same time. Transporting, haunting and beautiful. I adored this and highly recommend it.

n  “What makes us the most normal,” said Reiko, “is knowing that we’re not normal.”n

4.5

هاروكي موراكامي، فن تحويل العادي إلى مذهل.

I revisited Norwegian Wood remembering nothing about my college year experience with it, nothing except that I loved it. And I can see why: the plot is propulsive, with Murakami’s kinetic prose once again keeping me up late; the lead character is a well-realized loner archetype; the world, 1960s Japan during the student protests, glimmers in the background. There are excellent long-sequences (hospital visit, fire, sanatorium) It is salacious and often funny, well-observed:

“The second feature was a fairly normal sex flick, which meant it was even more boring than the first. It had lots of oral sex scenes, and every time they started doing fellatio or cunnilingus or sixty-nine the soundtrack would fill the theater with loud sucking or slurping sound effects. Listening to them, I felt strangely moved to think that I was living out my life on this odd planet of ours.”

And yet, things gave me pause. The book is set in the past, yes, but the rape humor (several jokes), the shocking scene of lesbian pedophilia (which is as bizarre and creepy a sequence I can remember reading (more on that in a second)), the way every female character in the book is a sex object, and the extremely rare trio of Magic Pixie Dream Girl characters, all of it vexed me. I do not hold this against Murakami, necessarily—he wrote it in the 80’s, and the book is about sex—but the gender issues keep me from giving this book my full endorsement.

As ever with Murakami, the western canon’s influence is fascinating. Toru, the lead, reads Magic Mountain while visiting a sanatorium; he makes friends by talking about The Great Gatsby; he spends a late-night reading Hermann Hesse; most pertinently to the plot, he is a lover of John Updike, particularly The Centaur. There’s a good running joke in the undercurrent of the novel – everyone except Toru is reading and loving Kenzaburo Oe.

SPOILERS, BIG SPOILERS:

The resolution of the plot bugged me. This is a book w/ too many suicides (three!), and the ending is very frustrating. There’s a fan theory that makes a lot of sense that suggests that Reiko – the woman who tells the pedophilia story – is a liar, and that the letter Toru sends her is used to convince Naoko to kill herself. The one bit of Murakami magic realism in the story comes at the ending—it is little written about in online synopses, but Midori’s final question (where are you now?) doesn’t leave Toru confused. He is stunned, because he is where Midori’s father said he would be on his deathbed, the specific train station that will bring him to Midori. This is nice, and can be read as further support of the theory that Reiko pushed them together. Great, cool! And yet, though all this makes sense, it is too far beneath the surface to be fact, and so for me it is a what-might-have-been, not a clever burial of plot. It would be like if Vertigo ended 30 minutes early: you have to show a bit of the work to get credit.

أول راوية طويلة متعجبنيش لموراكامي..
جايز تكون كئيبة بزيادة..جايز أكون قريتها في وقت غلط..معرفش..
بس مقارنة بروايات هاروكي التانية..الرواية دي عادية أوي...تفتقد الكثير من جنان هاروكي الموجود في رواياته الأخري...
بس علي الرغم من كدة ومع حجم الراوية الكبير إلا إن قلم هذا الرجل مازال ساحراً وإسلوبه ممتع وبيخليك تقرأ وتكمل عادي حتي لو القصة مش عجباك ودة مينفعش يحصل مع أي حد غير ...موراكامي:)

n  “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” n

CAUTION: This isn't a love story

This was my first introduction into the world of Murakami. This isn't a sappy love story as some Murakami fans would like to tell you. Haruki Murakami himself was baffled by the popularity that this story achieved due to the novel's departure from the usual surrealist themes that are associated with his novels. The fame achieved through Norwegian Wood had so profound an effect on the writer that he had to leave Japan and traveled across Europe and lived in the USA for some time, which resulted in the writing of n  Dance Dance Dancen.



Set in the '60s, Norwegian Wood has us walking through the musings of one Toru Watanabe, who looks back to the days of his youth when he participated in student protests and the people he connected with during that time. So is there no love-story? There are allusions to love, but there is no love-story. The prime themes of Norwegian Wood are loneliness, existential ennui, depression and suicide. Though, like most Murakami plots, these themes are brought about with some subtlety. The book made me reflect deeply into the past at times and induced strong feelings of nostalgia. I can safely recommend this to readers of any genre or style of literature.



The novel was adapted into a film in 2010.

❥ 4 / 5 stars

Although I complained a lot (almost every time) when sex scenes or conversations regarding sex came up in the story, I must say that this book could undoubtedly be considered as a very well-written one.

(Right, I mean it was well written in those parts too. He narrated them so crystal clear you didn’t even have to imagine it by yourself. That’s why it made me cringe AF.

Un libro nostálgico y melancólico sobre el pasado.

Tokio blues es el recuerdo de un hombre que cuando escucha en el aeropuerto la canción que lleva por título la novela se ve inmediatamente azotado por la desesperanza de tener que rememorar gran parte de su pasado. Esa etapa de la juventud donde perdió amigos, conoció amores, donde hubieron cuantiosas rupturas y alejamientos, donde tuvo experiencias buenas y malas en gran cantidad. Porque Tokio blues es un bucle de dolor, pérdida y abandono. Tres conceptos que han marcado su vida y la de otros tantos personajes que aparecen y que en consecuencia solo deja a sus personajes a la deriva, en un crítico e inestable vaivén emocional que solo puede generar más caos en sus mentalidades y en el entable de sus relaciones interpersonales.

Comparto la edad de sus protagonistas y aunque no las misma experiencias con ellos sufrí, me sentí solo, perdido y conectado a sus vidas sin sentido y en búsqueda de la plenitud. Y aunque no me identifico para nada con ellos, en realidad, es el poder narrativo el que me caló muy hondo ya que es profundamente inmersivo y nostálgico. Te arropa con una narración lenta, llena de detalles y de conversaciones vacías, a veces desesperadas, otras intensas y algunas de mucha tristeza. Es esa melancolía, ese vacío y ese dolor que encierra detrás de la cotidianidad y de recuerdos llenos de incomprensión gracias a una muerte que los persigue constantemente. Y es que la muerte siempre está allí de una y otra manera y es la que como telón de fondo los tiene al borde del precipicio.

Ahora, las partes que no me han gustado porque cada que recuerdo esos aspectos me despierta algo desagradable por dentro son dos en específico. El primer punto es el sexo y cómo se ve manejado ya que directamente se ve forzado e inorgánico, además de que me parece sumamente innecesario tantos comentarios de parte de Midori sobre la actividad sexual, las fantasías y los fetiches porque se siente un tufillo rancio y estereotipado. Lo mismo me pasa con las demás. Y aunque no sea ese su motivo o razón de ser, porque puedo ver perfectamente que ella al igual que el protagonista ven el sexo (ese acercamiento entre pieles), como una posible salvación a sus flaquezas y un bálsamo para sus carencias afectivas y heridas emocionales, no deja de chirriarme la escritura tan lamentable de todas las mujeres que aparecen.

Por eso, el segundo punto justo tiene que ver con que todas y cada una de las chicas se sientan así, como personajes que van en una sola dirección: enamorarse del protagonista. Naoko, Midori y Reiko tarde o temprano se ven atraídas por el "grandioso" joven que las escucha atentamente y quiere comprenderlas en su totalidad. De verdad, odio eso, porque perfectamente se puede explorar el apoyo emocional y la amistad sin necesidad de involucrar algún interes romántico. Ahora, es comprensible también que viendo cómo son todos los personajes busquen desesperadamente cualquier muestra de afecto y por eso se llegue a esa conclusión pero me desespera porque yo encontré a un prota demasiado plano (las chicas también) para mi gusto que no merece tanta atención como parece. Ah, y por si fuera poco hay dos escenas desagradables: una con la perlita de amigo que tiene Watanabe romantizando las violaciones que comete al emborrachar chicas y abusar de ellas y la otra con Watanabe protagonizando una escena de abuso sexual en un momento muy emocional de Naoko.

Con este libro me pasa algo muy curioso. Es de esos que amo pero detesto en partes iguales. De esas lecturas que le encuentras puntos positivos pero también negativos en una igual cantidad que equipara la balanza y la deja estable. No se puede ir ni a un lado ni al otro y por eso me refugio en mi tan confortable mitad: un 2.5 de amor absoluto a la narrativa de este señor, que a mí personalmente me parece muy lograda y que transmite esa sensación de pérdida con el paso del tiempo y de un pasado que arrastra mucho dolor. Y por el otro lado, un 2.5 de odio para los personajes, ya que su desarrollo y su construcción psicológica me parece acertada pero a la vez tan predecible que no me gusta sentir que los encasilla en moldes.

Eso sí, el desenlace se siente tan abrupto y tan poco confortable que me encanta, refuerza esa sensación de soledad, pérdida y abandono, una donde parece que el protagonista nunca podrá reponerse de todo lo que ha pasado gracias a la muerte que siempre orbita a su alrededor marcándolo de por vida.

Questa è una recensione negativa. Se ami visceralmente questo libro, al punto di non poter accettare che qualcuno lo critichi o metta in luce le problematiche al suo interno, sei invitato a passare oltre. Subissarmi di commenti o messaggi privati in cui mi aggredisci, mi insulti, o cerchi di convincermi che non sono autorizzata a parlare male del tuo libro preferito non servirà a farmi cambiare idea e avrà come unico risultato quello di farti bloccare.

C’era davvero bisogno di fare questa premessa? Fidatevi che sì.



n  “Mangiare bene produce molti spermatozoi,” disse Midori. “Tanto dopo ci penso io a farti venire.”
“Conto su di te.”
“Sai? Io conosco un sacco di modi. Li ho imparati dalle riviste femminili che avevamo in libreria. C’è stato un numero speciale su tutti i modi di farlo quando la donna è incinta, per non fare andare il marito con le altre donne. Tu non puoi immaginare quanti modi ci sono! Scommetto che non vedi l’ora di conoscerli.”n

Ti starai forse chiedendo, lettore, per quale motivo abbia scelto di aprire la mia recensione con una citazione di questo tipo. Il primo è che la suddetta frase rappresenta perfettamente la cifra stilistica dell’opera da cui è tratta; il secondo è che, non potendo rimuovere questo libro dalla mia memoria, trovo giusto infliggere almeno una parte della mia sofferenza sui malcapitati che leggeranno queste righe.
Ma andiamo con ordine.

Il primo e principale problema in cui mi sono imbattuta leggendo Norwegian Wood è quello del genere. Nonostante venga normalmente presentato come un'opera di narrativa letteraria, infatti, questo romanzo mi ha subito colpito per la sua somiglianza con i classici del romance.
Per chi non fosse pratico del settore: l’editoria italiana e quella internazionale classificano come romance quei libri incentrati su una storia d’amore tra due o più persone e culminanti in un lieto fine per la coppia principale.
Non solo NW soddisfa entrambi questi requisiti, ma contiene anche molti clichè (o, se preferite, espedienti narrativi) comunemente impiegati nella letteratura rosa:

•  Il protagonista è il classico ragazzo qualunque dalla personalità abbastanza neutra, costruito per far sì che la maggior parte dei lettori possa immedesimarsi in lui.

•  Nonostante non possieda particolari qualità, il suddetto protagonista funge inesplicabilmente da calamita per il genere femminile, al punto che le donne — o almeno, quelle attraenti — gli si gettano addosso con straordinaria frequenza. Da Naoko che riesce, per qualche motivo, a fare sesso solo con lui (e rievoca questa esperienza mistica prima di morire, come se fosse il momento più importante della sua vita), a Midori che lo molesta continuamente e lo prega in ginocchio di masturbarsi pensando a lei, fino a Reiko che gli propone di scopare così, de botto, senza senso, Toru pare essere irresistibile per qualsiasi donna gli stia vicino.

•  Gli altri personaggi maschili o muoiono, o sono dipinti come degli stronzi senza cuore che maltrattano le donne (non come Toru, che è proprio un bravo ragazzo! lui sì che merita di trovare l’amore!). In pratica, ogni uomo che potrebbe contrapporsi a Toru o fungere da ostacolo tra lui e le sue potenziali partner viene tolto di mezzo dall’autore.

•  I personaggi femminili, e in particolare i due principali interessi amorosi, esistono solo in funzione del protagonista. Naoko e Midori sono figure macchiettistiche, palesemente costruite a partire da una fantasia romantica/erotica dalla quale non si discostano mai. Naoko è il prototipo della fanciulla delicata, eterea e irraggiungibile, la cui malattia mentale serve come accessorio per renderla ancora più misteriosa e per darle un finale tragico che risolva il triangolo al centro della storia; Midori, dal canto suo, è l’idea platonica della manic pixie dream girl. Logorroica, perennemente eccitata, pronta a tutto per attirare l’attenzione di Toru, questa donna è il mio demone della paralisi del sonno. Raramente mi sono imbattuta in personaggi così molesti, ma soprattutto così irrealistici: il suo bisogno costante e disperato di scoparsi il protagonista farebbe ridere se non fosse irritante, e il fatto che sia costruita a tavolino per avere le caratteristiche della “donna ideale” (è bella, cucina benissimo, è sessualmente disinibita, ecc.) non toglie che la sua ossessione morbosa per Toru risulti a tratti davvero inquietante.

Voglio comunque mettere in chiaro una cosa: le caratteristiche sopra elencate, pur potendo risultare fastidiose, non costituiscono di per sé un difetto insormontabile. Non c’è nulla di male a scrivere una storia incentrata su una fantasia romantica, ed è perfettamente legittimo che Murakami o chiunque altri pubblichi un romanzo nato dal sogno di essere circondato da donne affascinanti che farebbero di tutto per lui. Contrariamente a molti lettori, io non considero il romance un genere inferiore o inutile; anzi, penso svolga una funzione fondamentale nel mondo della letteratura. Ognuno di noi ha bisogno di vedere i propri desideri rappresentati nelle storie che legge, e se questo libro è stato di conforto per qualcuno — se lo ha aiutato a sentirsi più forte, a credere in se stesso, o a sperare di poter trovare la persona giusta per lui — allora sono felice che sia stato pubblicato.
Ma questo non spiega come mai un’opera simile venga trattata come un “romanzo di formazione” e non come una storia d’amore. L’unica giustificazione che riesco a darmi è legata all’identità dell’autore: poichè Murakami è un uomo che scrive principalmente narrativa letteraria, i suoi libri non possono essere classificati come romance. Farlo implicherebbe ammettere che un autore del suo calibro può “abbassarsi” a scrivere romanzi sentimentali, notoriamente considerati di serie B; e quindi si preferisce vendere questo libro come qualcosa che non è, con buona pace di chi, come la sottoscritta, vorrebbe sapere cosa si appresta a leggere per regolare le sue aspettative di conseguenza.

Rimane il fatto che, da qualunque prospettiva lo guardi, per me questo libro non ha funzionato.
Non ha funzionato come romanzo letterario perché è troppo stereotipato, irrealistico e pieno di clichè: dai suicidi continui e immotivati (che spesso sembrano inseriti solo per far andare la trama in una certa direzione), ai dialoghi ridicoli e ripetitivi, fino agli espedienti narrativi sopra elencati, sono tante le cose che mi hanno impedito di prenderlo sul serio.
E non ha funzionato come romance, perché il suo target non sono io e la mia idea di romanticismo è lontanissima da quella di Murakami. Le sue storie d’amore mi sembrano tossiche, le scene di sesso mi fanno venir voglia di fare voto di castità, e il modo in cui tratta tematiche come la malattia mentale e lo stupro mi risulta agghiacciante.
A tal proposito, preferisco sorvolare sulla caratterizzazione di Reiko e sui toni usati dall'autore per descrivere una scena di sesso tra un'adulta (dipinta come una vittima innocente di inganno e seduzione) e la sua allieva tredicenne (che dovrebbe essere una diabolica predatrice sessuale in virtù del fatto che...è lesbica...).


Se volete leggere una storia di formazione che affronti in modo realistico il tema dei disturbi mentali, sia ambientata in Giappone e includa un buon numero di scene di sesso, vi consiglio piuttosto La Mia Prima Volta di Kabi Nagata.

n  n    “don’t feel sorry for yourself. only assholes do that.”n  n

women’s history month is over, so it seems only natural to put feminism on the back burner for a hot second and read a very long overdue book.

norwegian wood is a coming of age novel that follows toru watanabe as he reminiscences about his college years in the late 60s and early 70s. he falls in and out of love with women and attempts to cope with the suicide of his best friend from a few years before. it explores themes of grief, coping, and love.

because murakami’s main genre is magical realism, we see his dreamlike tone seep into the narrative. the way he writes is ethereal and almost chimerical. the introspection and detail he puts into describing feelings regarding mental health/depression/grief was one of the most well written portrayals i have read about. i think this is why i loved it so much, despite the various problematic aspects.

the prose is as melancholy as it is beautiful. it has a very muted quality to it, but it was so incredibly vivid at the same time. i was transported into this time and world i have never lived in. i was feeling what the characters were feeling and breathing the air the characters were breathing. i deeply resonated with so many lines and parts and it was an almost remedial experience for me.

however, i think it is important to criticize and open up literary discourse on some things that may fall short, even for books i enjoy. in this case, it’s the portrayal of women.

it is impossible to read a murakami novel without feeling shocked and almost sick at the regressive and objective nature in which he writes women. in signature murakami fashion, the women were overtly sexualized without reason. they were manic pixie dream girls and felt specifically catered for men. i sometimes think it’s really funny how much men think we think about our boobs. i could literally see a picture of mine and not realize that they're mine.

all in all, murakami has once again crafted a beautiful novel exploring heavy hitting, important themes, while disastrously messing up the portrayal of women. i’m weirdly okay with that.

I started reading this book back in February but I think timing was not right and we didn’t click. I stopped after 20%, and also I thought it was weird with all its sex talk, alcoholism, and suicides. Fast forward to June and my buddy said she was reading and I had to read this, at least give it a try before finally ditching it. I wanted to have something in my defense when I tell my group of friends that why I didn’t like this book (he is super popular among my friends).

n  "But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives."n

In his own special way Murakami explores the Japan of late 60s and early 70s from the eyes of Toru Watanabe, a student in Japanese University. This beautiful coming of age of story analyse the love triangle of Toru, Naoko, and Midori. While Toru and Naoko were bound by the death of their close friend Kizhuki (Naoko and Kizuki were childhood sweethearts), Midori was someone whom Toru met in university days and became deeply attached to. These three characters represent devotion, heartbreak, love, regret, loss, emptiness, madness, self-pity (at times), and hope.

Though the story is told from Toru’s PoV but it was the girls i.e. Naoko and Midori that won my heart. Both girls represent the extreme ends of spectrum. While Naoko despite having everything depicts the downfall of life, Midori after having a difficult childhood and teen years shines like a bright ray of hope. And what an experience it was live these two lives through Toru. It gave me goose bumps.

Murakami also beautifully depicts the modernization of Japan and effect of West on Japan in those days. Younger generation just wanted to break free themselves from old culture and dwell in this new and fast way of life where relationships had shorter life span than the ripples on water. Depression, unhappiness, anxiety driving people insane and finally ending their life.

It was an emotional roller coaster ride which I think everyone should experience at least once.