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 The German composer Richard Stauss once asked his esteemed colleague Paul Hindemith :"Dear Paul, why do you write atonal music, you have got so much talent?"Similarly one can't often help but wonder, what books the likes of Pynchon and Barth would write if they would temporarily refrain from overt post-modernism. As far as Murakami is concerned, Norwegian Wood provides the answer to the question what would happen if he would keep the sheep and the elephants in the barn and stay out of deep wells. Not surprisingly for a writer of his stature, the results he achieves in Norwegian Wood are still fantastic. Many other reviewers have already given away way too much of the story and I will limit myself to some general comments. In a way that almost resembles Mozart, Murakami can be considered "the King of the slow movements". With the most accessible and minimal means he evokes persons, scenes and emotions with the greatest of precision. Just like Mozart, Murakami's strength lies not only in the words he writes, but more importantly in all the unnecessary ones that he omits. This book has been correctly described as a Bildungsroman. It describes a flash back at the process of coming of age in the sixties. Surrounded by student uproar, which gets an appropriately sarcastic treatment, the protagonist Toru has to find his way through the realms of love, lust and loss. This process is described in an array of powerful scenes to which the many musical references provide an essential and seamless soundtrack. In his introduction to Gaddis' Recognitions William Gass hits the nail on the head by remarking that great art cannot be approached in a reductionist mode. Similarly, the only thing I can advise prospective readers is to plunge in themselves to find out why Murakami should be considered among the very best writers around today. Subarashii desu ne.
The story is set in the late 1960s Tokyo. It tells the story of a lonesome, "can't quite fit in" young male college student and his relationship with friends and lovers, most of whom are equally disillusioned with life. His female companions are especially depressed, achingly so. ... and that's it! I wish I can say the story yields something particularly insightly or moves in a forward direction. Maybe it does for some. I found it to be a constant recycling of depressing conversation and, embarassingly, discussions of sexual relations to extruciating detail. Having said all this, I am still a fan of Murakami. His The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a masterpiece. I only wish Norwegian Wood was as daring and original. Bottom line: a heartfelt but ultimately tame and derivative look at the sadness and loneliness of youth.
This is the second of Murakami's books that I've read. The first, "A Wild Sheep's Chase" lost me in its allegorical approach to the existential detective novel. "Norwegian Wood", while a much more straightforward and accessible a narrative, is no less complex. Although written in Japanese, you'd never know it. Jay Rubin's translation is seamless, capturing Murakami's easy dialogue effortlessly. The writing really shines through. As do Murakami's rhetorical techniques, which include using personal letters to get past what would be a lot of lengthy exposition. Usually I find this technique distasteful and lazy, but Murakami's letters are so skillfully economical and honest (not to mention woven consistently into the narrative) that I found it to be a rather effective technique. And his powers of language are staggering, so much so that he manages to make tired cliches seem robust. He even trumps the saccharine 'box of chocolates' simile from "Forrest Gump", coming up with an analogy of his own that is not only clever, but also relevant and original. It also helps that for Western audiences, Murakami is unexpectedly accessible, as American music and American literature dominate his thoughts. This gives the novel (like all of Murakami's novels, from what I understand) an almost paradoxical feel for Western readers. I found myself skipping along, feeling as if the story was set in Berkley during the late 1960's, but then every once and a while Japanese culture will jump up; after a touch of vertigo, you realize just how transcultural the East has become. Another of the novel's major themes, and definitely its most powerful, is the notion, often repeated, "death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life." Watanabe appears to have the Midas touch; only when he comes in contact with people, they don't turn to gold, they die. Sometimes it feels like Murakami is chronicling the genocide of a sensitive subculture of 1960's Japanese youths. Fortunately, death is never exploited. Well, sometimes it's used as a device to jumpstart the narrative, but Murakami has such sensitivity in his writing that it never feels cheap. Murakami's greatest feat is his spare recounting of college dormitory life. It's rendered realistically, providing a setting for much of Watanabe's ennui. He even notes at one point that college is nothing more than a "period of training in techniques for dealing with boredom." Luckily, Watanabe gets a lot of mileage out of the people he meets in his dorm. A fastidious roommate, a lecherous friend, and others provide a menagerie of minor characters who revolve around the story's periphery, reflecting back at Watanabe certain aspects of his personality that he may not want to see. In Watanabe, Murakami has created a terrifically grounded narrator. He is frank and plainspoken, to such an extreme degree that the people he knows keep commenting on it. He lacks pretension and ego, while constantly in a mode of observing. In many senses, he is a perfect narrator. Thankfully he fulfills that duty, because as a character you'd almost never notice him. He goes through periods where he's a cipher, and then through periods where his low-key charisma inexplicably attracts a number of beautiful, iconoclastic girls. It appears that you have to be tuned to a specific, underground radio station to really appreciate Watanabe. He's like a secret club that only attracts people who are "kinda weird and twisted and drowning". I dug him. The bulk of the novel is taken up with Watanabe's relationships with two of these weird and twisted characters. Midori, a fellow student, is a whirlwind of unbridled curiosity and unchecked ego, especially when the topic is sex. She's also funny, charismatic, sad, immature, dramatic, passionate, and highly emotional. She challenges Watanabe, and is successful in bringing him out of his shell. I found myself rooting for Midori to be the one that Watanabe chooses for love; but in the end Murakami makes you realize that love is not a voluntary thought, and that the "choice" is never that easy. Instead, Watanabe is obsessed with Naoko, the girlfriend of his dead best friend. Their love affair is always tenuous, and kind of creepy in its necrophilia. Naoko is tortured and troubled and sad. It's hard to decide if she never really loves Watanabe, or is just incapable of love. Murakami never provides easy answers when dealing with her situation. In that way she becomes not only the most real but also the most frustrating character in the book. What does Watanabe see in her? I'll never know, but I certainly recognize his reactions to a transcendent feeling. Naoko also provides the book's title. She loves the Beatles' song 'Norwegian Wood' because it "can make me feel so sad. 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. That's why Reiko never plays it unless I request it." Reiko, Naoko's roommate, in a typical moment of wit, comments that it "Sounds like Casablanca!" This is typical Murakami: positioning gentle emotional epiphanies against modern, pop-culture obsessed observations. It's a style that certainly makes this book, on the surface morbid and forlorn, addictively readable.
like the song, norwegian wood is sweet and simple and sad. i enjoyed the story of a young man's journey through an extraordinarily emotional terrain. it has been a while since i have read this book, and i only hope that i can be fair in my review. when i read it, i could not put it down. i didn't want to. i wanted to stay with him, through his love and pain and heartache. i wanted to hold him through it. to take care of him ... this is the best kind of book, where you feel like you can step into the pages and take the hand of the characters - bring them through the pain. when they talk about norwegian wood, the song, a simple melody, a memory, i know what they mean. i understand. because i love that song. it is a memory to me. a journey and an understanding. norwegian wood sings, 'i once had a girl, or should i say, she once had me?' that is this book. this story. this love. she has him. he thinks, maybe, he has her, but it is a fleeting grip. a touch. she has him the entire time. and she doesn't let go. i reccommend this book to anyone who has ever felt the loss of a first love. to anyone who has ever loved at all. it may not be like the rest of murakami's books. there are no unicorn skulls or wind-up birds, but it doesn't matter. this is a gentle look at a young man realizing what it is truly like to BE a man. and all the hurt and glory that goes along with it. |
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is one of a long list of books on disillusioned youths looking for some purpose in their rather directionless lives. I wish I can say this book is a Japanese equivalent to A Catcher in the Rye. The author tries, tries very hard. But in the end I was disappointed.
