This didn't work for me at all.

It all pretty much starts and ends with our narrator, the nondescript Toru. Here we have a man who can only relate to women in sexual terms. Every time he said he was in love with one of the female characters, it would take me by surprise. I had no idea he had any feelings towards them. He shows the same amount of interest in every person, male or female, in love with or indifferent to. When he does profess his love, he'll remember some sexual encounter, nothing about their personality, or some actual form of emotional intimacy.

And you could say, that's what Toru as a character is supposed to be, but as I, as a reader, spend a novel's length inside his head, it's just draining.

The female characters feel very written by a male novelist - veering between suicidal hysterics and manic pixie dream girl. There is no reality to these women, they only exist for Toru to bounce off of. There is nothing real about Toru's relationships with any of the women. There is no insight into love or relationships here.

And then there's the last chapter, where Toru finally gets to have sex with the last female character left unboinked, and it's a sexual awakening for her. Toru is delivering revelatory orgasms to any woman that'll have him. And what is this trite ass shit I've been reading?

Valiantly wrestled through this mess with the effervescent Safa

A Nostalgic and Melancholic Book about the Past.

Tokio Blues is the memory of a man who, when he hears the song that gives the novel its title at the airport, is immediately overcome by the despair of having to recall a large part of his past. That stage of youth where he lost friends, knew loves, where there were numerous breakups and partings, where he had a great many good and bad experiences. Because Tokio Blues is a loop of pain, loss and abandonment. Three concepts that have marked his life and that of so many other characters who appear and who, as a result, only leave his characters adrift, in a critical and unstable emotional ebb and flow that can only generate more chaos in their minds and in the framework of their interpersonal relationships.

I share the age of its protagonists and although I did not have the same experiences as them, I felt alone, lost and connected to their meaningless lives and in search of fulfillment. And although I do not identify with them at all, in reality, it is the narrative power that has deeply affected me since it is deeply immersive and nostalgic. It wraps you in a slow narrative, full of details and empty conversations, sometimes desperate, other times intense and some very sad. It is that melancholy, that emptiness and that pain that lies behind everyday life and memories full of incomprehension thanks to a death that constantly haunts them. And it is that death is always there in one way or another and it is the one that, like a backdrop, has them on the edge of the precipice.

Now, the parts that I have not liked because every time I remember those aspects something unpleasant wakes up inside me are two in particular. The first point is sex and how it is handled since it is directly seen as forced and inorganic, in addition to the fact that I find it extremely unnecessary so many comments from Midori about sexual activity, fantasies and fetishes because it feels old-fashioned and stereotyped. The same happens to me with the others. And although that may not be its purpose or reason for being, because I can perfectly see that she, like the protagonist, sees sex (that closeness between skins) as a possible salvation from their weaknesses and a balm for their emotional lacks and wounds, the lamentable writing of all the women who appear still grates on me.

Therefore, the second point has to do with the fact that each and every one of the girls feel this way, as characters who go in only one direction: to fall in love with the protagonist. Naoko, Midori and Reiko are sooner or later attracted to the \\"great\\" young man who listens to them attentively and wants to understand them completely. Truly, I hate that, because it is perfectly possible to explore emotional support and friendship without the need to involve some romantic interest. Now, it is also understandable that seeing how all the characters are, they desperately seek any sign of affection and that is why they come to that conclusion, but it frustrates me because I found a protagonist (and the girls too) too flat for my taste who does not deserve as much attention as it seems. Ah, and as if that were not enough, there are two unpleasant scenes: one with Watanabe's precious friend romanticizing the rapes he commits when he gets girls drunk and abuses them and the other with Watanabe starring in a scene of sexual abuse at a very emotional moment of Naoko's.

With this book something very curious happens to me. It is one of those that I love but hate in equal parts. Of those readings where you find positive points but also negative points in an equal amount that balances the scale and leaves it stable. You can't go to one side or the other and that's why I take refuge in my so comfortable middle: a 2.5 of absolute love for the narrative of this gentleman, which personally seems very successful to me and which transmits that feeling of loss with the passage of time and of a past that drags a lot of pain. And on the other hand, a 2.5 of hate for the characters, since their development and psychological construction seems accurate to me but at the same time so predictable that I don't like to feel that they are pigeonholed into molds.

That's right, the ending feels so abrupt and so uncomfortable that I love it, it reinforces that feeling of loneliness, loss and abandonment, one where it seems that the protagonist will never be able to recover from everything that has happened thanks to the death that always orbits around him, marking him for life.

Turns out, to my great disappointment, I simply cannot find a single fuck to give about this particular thing.

It takes an eternity to get started, and from the very beginning, it fails to capture my attention.

The characters are extremely bland and lack any sort of depth or realism. They don't sound like real people at all, making it difficult to form any sort of connection with them.

The sex scenes are not only unhealthy but also extremely weird and awkward, leaving me feeling rather uncomfortable.

The narrator comes across as pretentious as fuck, which further detracts from the overall experience.

The dialogues are painful to read, lacking any sort of natural flow or authenticity.

And as for the plot - well, huh, wait a minute, there seems to be no plot at all!

So, yeah. Big, fat DNF.

A spectacle of emotions where the lack of emotional maturity ultimately destroys lives..... don't miss it.

This is a story that unfolds with a series of intense and heart-wrenching events. The characters, driven by their unchecked emotions, make choices that lead to disastrous consequences. The lack of emotional maturity becomes a ticking time bomb, slowly but surely detonating and shattering the lives of those involved.

For a complete video review, visit the following link:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTC9AOZlMVZ/

Don't let this powerful and thought-provoking story pass you by. Watch the video and be prepared to be moved and enlightened.

When I started reading this book, I thought it would be a love novel. However, I believe it goes beyond that.

It talks about falling in love, loving someone as a friend, as a partner, as a sister. It also discusses love itself and perhaps questions what love is. The love for oneself, one's state of mind, the stage one is going through in life related to age, life history, studies, friendships... and all of that is summarized in how one can manage one's life when there are strong emotions.

I admit that when I finished reading the book, I thought about it for about 15 minutes and analyzed it. When I read the end, I wasn't satisfied at first, but after thinking about the story and the characters in the context, I just said "Wow!".

I have read Murakami's books before and this one is more "simple", but realistic... and that's what I like. People with problems, depression, perdition, suicides, superficial satisfactions, craziness... all the things that many of us did when we were young and thought we were the kings of the world.

I don't know why, but while reading this book, I wanted to take a drink, be in a garden with a beautiful spring climate, have a barbecue and live my life peacefully. It gave me a sense of peace and satisfaction and I have no idea why.

A very special mention to all the great music mentioned in this book. Music is very important to me and it's a great plus. Everything is very good.

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.

I initially read 160 pages of this novel. However, I then encountered a four-day Reader’s Block. This was not only due to the nature of the book but also precipitated by problems in my personal life, which I'll save for Oprah to hear. I reached out to a librarian and explained my predicament. She recommended that I undergo an intense course of Murakami Avoidance Therapy (MAT). According to this therapy, I had to put down all Murakamis I was reading at that moment and turn to writers who were not Murakami. And you know what? It worked like a charm! I was cured! Those librarians truly know what they are talking about, even if their sentence structure might not be perfect.

So, I put Murakami aside. It was such a relief. Because those first 160 pages were so uneventful and lackluster, so ordinary and insubstantial. I felt as if I was walking through an airport terminal at 4 AM, drugged with Prozac and wearing slippers, in a soporific state. I was walking towards the bookstore where Murakami’s Norwegian Wood sits on the bestseller list. It is being read by people who are too busy to read books but think this is the pinnacle of contemporary literature. And it's in translation too, which makes it seem twice as stylish and intelligent. But in reality, nothing much happens in the story. There's just a dull student who fancies himself as Holden Caulfield, hanging out with a bland-yet-mysterious possible lover. Then comes a clichéd playboy who introduces him to casual sex. And then another girl who almost manages to bring the novel back to life, but alas, it fails. And the translator seems to have a penchant for the phrases “sort of” and “kind of”. People are sort of people and kind of humans, but are more something else that's supposed to sound poetically profound but often just comes across as forced.

So, thanks a lot, librarian! MAT has saved me from four more hours of mediocrity! Make sure to hug a librarian tomorrow!

YouTube book channelimda Japon edebiyatı hakkında daha detaylı bilgi edinebilirsiniz: https://ytbe.one/QbT0zmxxnoM

BRUH. If I were to summarize this book in one word, I would say a huge BRUH. In fact, to make this book come alive better in your eyes, let me start with a small example. Take Livaneli and Elif Şafak, take them to an Oriental restaurant to eat, and then give them both bat soup... Here you have the book The Song of the Impossible!

Now, there will surely be Murakami hooligans who think I gave this book such a low score because of the intense sexuality it contains, and who want to throw me into their literary cauldrons and organize a bloody ritual. But they will be wrong... Before I say why I gave this book this score, let's talk about some points.

First of all, when I finish a book, I read many reviews written by both Turks and foreign readers on other platforms about that book, so that I can collect a mixed data of how different nations think about a book and understand it. I compare all of them with my own thoughts and create the review you are reading now. Regarding this book, I noticed that there were some misinterpretations in some of the negative reviews made by foreign readers.

In the reviews made by foreign readers, this book has received various criticisms such as having too many sexual scenes, the characters seizing every opportunity to have sex, and the female characters appearing weak, simple, and easily obtainable. Well, if we are going to interpret a book by a Japanese author that takes place in Japan and contains Japanese characters not with the sexuality and the role of women in Japanese social structure but with the moral values and acceptances of our own nations, what is the point of that? I know that foreign readers will not be able to reach what I write here, but maybe one day their paths will lead to this site and they will want to translate this review through Google Translate, maybe...

If I have to give a little information about the Japanese, according to Onur Ataoğlu's book Japon Yapmış, who has lived in Japan for years and observed the country and its people, "instead of the understanding of 'it is impossible without getting married', the principle of 'it is married without being possible' is accepted" in the Japanese sexual world. [p. 92] That is, sexuality is not a taboo like it is for us in Japan. Young people can freely do what they want with the person they want. Whether this conforms to our moral values or not, that is not our position. Therefore, I think that books should be evaluated from the perspective of the values and cultures of the nation in which they are written.

I want to make one more very small addition. Again, as Onur Ataoğlu's book Japon Yapmış says, "according to the Japanese social structure, a woman has no opinion of her own" [p. 102] As you can see, I have refuted the negative reviews made by foreign readers about this book. If there is intense sexuality in the book, this is because of the Japanese sexual preferences, and if the women in the book are portrayed as weak and easily obtainable, this is again because in the patriarchal social structure of the Japanese, women are not even allowed to have their own opinions. Therefore, the 2-star rating of this book, in my opinion, is because Murakami has well reflected the liberal understanding of his own culture in the book.

The only thing I can criticize regarding the size of the sexuality in the book is that there is a beautification of rape:

"If the idea of raping someone comes to your mind every night, please don't mix them up," said Reiko. "The intact body on the left is Naoko's."
"Liar. Mine is in the bed on the right," said Naoko." [p. 171]

Haha, but Reiko and Naoko are so funny... That is, if these lines were written by one of our Turkish authors, I'm sure that person's mouth and face would have been lynched long ago. Therefore, I don't think that the issue of rape has a race, gender, culture, time, or nation. Rape is rape. It is a universal issue that causes permanent psychological damage, and its beautification or even the slightest joke is unacceptable, and it is not related to time or culture.

Also, before moving on to the negative part, let me give you a little hint... If you evaluate the books of authors like Murakami, who give a lot of place to the values and cultures of the West in their books, and the books of traditional authors like Mishima, who are attached to their own values, comparatively, you will progress a lot in your own reading journey. For example, Dostoyevsky was also a Panslavist, defending Slavic values, and towards the end of his life, he became an author who was very attached to Russian national folk values. On the contrary, Turgenyev was generally advocating liberal Westernization and Europeanization. You can also make comparative literary studies between Turgenyev and Dostoyevsky among Japanese authors like Mishima and Murakami or among social realist Turkish authors like Orhan Kemal and Fakir Baykurt and individualist Turkish authors like Oğuz Atay and Yusuf Atılgan.

Now let's come to why I gave this book 2 out of 5 stars... Guys, this book is a plain book. That is, if I were to read this book, I wouldn't consider myself as having read a book. It has no humor and no literary concern. Like in the books of Livaneli and Elif Şafak, there is nothing it can offer to the reader in terms of language, form, literary pleasure, and style. If this book is published under the title "What You Need to Learn About Japanese Sexuality" as a non-fiction and educational book, it would be more accurate and better. Because in this form, I don't think it has any literary value at all.

In fact, this book would have been really sufficient even if it were only 40-50 pages. Because I can't say that I saw anything other than empty rambling in a 370-page book. I have to say that I was very surprised when I heard that this book, which is so plain and has no literary concern, is the main book that makes the author popular. That is, when I read this book, I think I would have gained more if I had watched SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick's Adventures instead.

I had read that in Murakami's other books, the real and the supernatural were successfully combined, but unfortunately, this book was a big fiasco for me. That is, in my opinion, the book The Song of the Impossible should not be on the lists of "books that must be read before dying" but on the lists of "books that must be died before reading". I don't think you will lose anything if you don't read this book. Instead of reading a plain book written by the author without any literary concern for 370 pages, I think you can find and read many other quality books, either with my recommendations or with your own discoveries.

The main thing is that "The Song of the Impossible" is that the negative thoughts felt towards books are not indicated and written in some places just to get a reaction, and this causes other readers to waste their time. The thing that makes it "impossible" to indicate negative criticisms is that you attach more importance to the reactions you will receive from others than to what you think. In that case, my request from you who have read this writing until here is that from now on, you can write the songs of the things that are forced to be made impossible for us with your own thoughts without being afraid of anyone. You are unique with your own self and your own thoughts.

How this book became one of Murakami's most famous and popular truly baffles me.

In fact, when asked about it in an interview, Murakami himself said that he was puzzled by its popularity and that it really isn't what he wants to be known for.

What can I say? There's too little of the characters that do spark my interest and much too much of the depressive girlfriend and her kooky friend at the mental institution. Also, the scenes which were supposed to be funny about his college roommate didn't interest me at all and ultimately struck me as dark and disturbing.

Perhaps this book resonated with so many people because there were four suicides in it? No, that can't be. Murakami deals with depression much more thoughtfully and insightfully in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

The worst thing about this book's popularity is that it may be some readers' introduction to Murakami, which would very likely lead them to form a negative opinion of him and not care to explore his other works, which is just awful. This book should come with a warning: "Not recommended for pregnant women, may be carcinogenic, and not representative of Murakami's great genius."

It's a pity that such a book has gained such prominence. Murakami has so many other wonderful works that deserve more attention and recognition. This particular one seems to have overshadowed some of his true masterpieces.

Maybe it's time for readers to look beyond this popular but perhaps not so representative work and discover the real depth and breadth of Murakami's literary world.

۲۰ بهمن ۱۴۰۳
ساعت ۱۷:۲۵
I read the last words from the original version. I understand that the Iranian censorship era has been tough on the translator as well, and I'm grateful that with wisdom, he showed the reader where to refer to the original version.

Let's move on. I wanted to, as always, pick up the book an hour before going to bed and turn the last pages, but I didn't have the strength. Although I guessed that after finishing the book, I would feel a certain kind of emptiness, and that's what happened :)

The book (the original version) was like a bitter wine. I liked its taste. It was bitter, but its flavor will remain in my mind forever.

Before this, I had dealt with Milan Kundera's heaviness, but this work of Murakami was really different. A combination of life, death, sadness, and erotic moments that freed my eyes from a certain kind of mental numbness!

Now I'm here. I sat on my bed. I drank a warm tea and thought about how strange life is. And death, which is a part of it, is even stranger.

Well, this was my very first encounter with Murakami, and I must say that I was completely smitten. I relished every single detail that he so meticulously penned, without ever exhausting the reader.

On the surface, it was a novel centered around "Love" as the main theme, yet it was not the only one. It delved into the political climate of that era and the rebellious university students' anger or even folly towards other political parties, which always evoked indifference in the main character, Toru. I also grasped the writer's intention regarding the "love, sex, depression, and grief issues" among people, especially teenagers.

Toru Watanabe, the protagonist, heard "Norwegian Wood" by "The Beatles" playing at the airport. This triggered a memory, transporting him back 18 years to when he was a 20-year-old university student.

[Spoiler Alert] At 17, he had a friend, Kizuki, who was not only his best but also his only friend. And there was Kizuki's girlfriend, Naoko. They were always together, having a great time, and being each other's sole confidants. With Kizuki's sudden suicide, everything changed. It was as if with his death, a part of the living, a crucial part necessary for life, was taken away from them and carried to the deepest recesses of the dead's world.

[Spoiler Alert] Many events unfolded, and Toru led an oddly sorrowful life from then on. He fell in love with Naoko, slept with her, had numerous one-night stands, met new people, and fell in love with another girl named Midori, a lively and vivacious one, who was in many ways the opposite of Naoko when you examined their personality differences closely. He also met Nagasawa, a wealthy guy with an exquisite taste in literature, who lived in his dorm. He met Reiko, a true friend of Naoko's, when they were in the mental hospital. Her backstory was one of the most captivating parts of the book that I truly adored and savored.

Now, as I'm writing this, "Norwegian Wood" is playing in the background, and I'm truly moved.

P.S: I'm glad I read the English translation. Please, if you want to fully enjoy this book, read it in English. I'm certain that Persian translators have marred the book through censorship.

Quotes:

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

"What happens when people open their hearts? They get better."

"Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment."

"Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that."

"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 lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives."

"I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed and that I stood next to you here like this?"

"I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it - to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once."

"No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, and no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning."

"I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning."

"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."

"What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously."

"Only the Dead stay seventeen forever."

"If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark."

"What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal."

"People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die."

"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, and I 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."

"She's letting out her feelings. The scary thing is not being able to do that. When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you're in big trouble."

Oh boy... Where to I even begin?

Pros: The writing and storytelling are good. The author has a certain charm in presenting the narrative, which initially draws the reader in.

Cons: However, every time I started to enjoy this book, the author made sure I didn't.

1. The way the female characters are compared to babies or kids during sexual scenes is a major turn-off for me. Phrases like "She had the breast of a little girl." (p.290) are highly inappropriate and make me uncomfortable.

2. Once again, I have to point out that this is another book where the author seems overly obsessed with the wrinkles of a ~40yo woman. It's a personal pet peeve of mine. We get a whole paragraph about her wrinkles when we first meet her, and it becomes a recurrent discussion throughout the book. I can already anticipate the excuses that it's from the POV of the 18yo or that maybe she's insecure about it. But ever since I started noticing how common this is, especially among male authors, I can't unsee it, and it really annoys me.

3. Let's talk about the sex scenes. Some of the descriptions are just strange and off-putting. For example, "I wanted to explain to her, 'I am having intercourse with you now. I am inside you. But really this is nothing. It doesn't matter. It is nothing but the joining of two bodies. All we are doing is telling each other things that can only be told by the rubbing together of two imperfect lumps of flesh.'" I'd rather go back to reading fairy porn by Sarah J Maas.

4. My most serious complaint is that the female characters didn't ring true to me at all. Why are they all acting and saying these things around the MC? The most blatant example is when Reiko tells him about her SA. Why do male authors seem incapable of discussing SA without fetishizing it? The "lesbian scene" where Reiko gets assaulted by the 13yo is particularly disturbing. She makes sure to give all the details about how wet she was to the MC she just met.

And then there's this: "Know what I did the other day?" Midori asked. "I got all naked in front of my father's picture. Took off every stitch of clothing and let him have a good, long look. Kind of in a yoga position. Like, 'here, daddy, these are my tits, and this is my cunt.'" (p.229) Why does female trauma always have to be sexualized? Her dad just died, and this is how she copes? By getting naked and showing him her vulva? And then telling the MC all about it? Please.

Could some of it be due to cultural differences since it's set in 1968? Maybe, but I rate my books based on my enjoyment, and I didn't enjoy myself at all. I just don't get the hype surrounding this book. It has definitely made it to my worst books of 2022: https://youtu.be/jOcHnWSUOEw

❥ 4 / 5 stars

Although I found myself complaining frequently (almost every single time) whenever sex scenes or conversations about sex emerged in the story, I have to admit that this book is undeniably a very well-written piece.

(Yes, I mean it was well-written even in those aspects. The author described them with such clarity that you didn't even have to use your imagination. That's precisely why it made me cringe so much.