There was, and still is, a belief that reading very great and very important works of literature would somehow improve your moral self, your intellectual self, and probably your sex life, acquired flat foot, and general social ineptitude too. You probably won't find a 100 books-you-must-read-before-you-die-or-forever-have-your-life-be-a-blind-mess list which will change your life here. But here is a book I liked; a book which changed my life in its own little way. Maybe you will like it too.
What makes us most normal... is knowing that we're not normal (195)
As Norwegian Wood is handed to me over the counter, the sales person authoritatively states "this is a lot more conventional than his usual writing style". Friend to book jacket all scream "true fans say it's not original, he sold out and wrote a love story".
I have that feeling again, maybe I am starting in the wrong place. Nevertheless, this attitude confuses me because Norwegian Wood to me isn't necessarily a love story. Maybe you can roughly stick that on along with 1960's, coming of age, and nostalgia! But it is more than that.
The story is told by Toru Watanabe who is recalling his student days after being confronted with hearing the song “Norwegian Wood” on an aeroplane flight. He thinks of his university days, his first love Naoko, and the tumultuous relationship with his friend Midori.
There is a beautiful, and somewhat haunting, sadness running throughout the novel which is in part due to delicate exploration of suicide, mental illness, and the complexities of relationships. Hand in hand with the nostalgia is a longing for something that never was, and cannot happen. In Naoko’s case the desire to be not forgotten, in Toru’s, a desire for some sort of meaning, or connection to somebody.
It is a wonderfully written and engrossing novel as long as you are willing to embrace it as it really works to elucidate what is jarring and missing in the world, and at times what is missing within yourself.
Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami, Vintage Books, 2003.
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