Norwegian Wood

It’s been so long since my last post. It’s not that my schedule is too full for my to blog — it isn’t — but rather I feel my writing inspirations gradually drained from my soul in this mindless meat grinder that is involuntary national service.

It will be a journey of rediscovery as I slowly relocate my lost ethos. Full recovery will take a while. For now, I’d like to start off with a book review — I believe the first ever on this blog if you don’t count manga and light novels.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.

I have always been a sci-fi person. When my peers were raving over Khaled Hosseini, I was enjoying decade old works of Orson Scott Card (a crazy Mormon dude who tells good stories). When Neil Gaiman’s Stardust was enjoying renewed attention thanks to its rather decent movie adaptation, I was busy having my mind blown by Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama Saga.

So it’s no surprise that I kind of missed the Haruki Murakami train the first time. Having only finished Norwegian Wood recently, I suppose there is a tinge of regret that I kept myself out of the loop for so long out of genre snobbery. While my usual favourites of sci-fi are gripping works of conceptual imagination, Norwegian Wood is a breathtaking ride in emotive imagery.

Norwegian Wood

A book is often judged by its story, but in that aspect Norwegian Wood is hardly epic. It is a simple story of teenage love and adulthood, one which in summary could be easily dismissed as mere pulp fiction. What the book does best is not the plot, but the overwhelming emotions Murakami conveys through his writing style that give life to the main characters.

The protagonist of this first-person narrative is Toru Watanabe, a somewhat unmotivated and cynical college student who is not too sure about where he is heading in life. He possesses a surreal detachment from the world around him, perhaps as a result of past pains. Although the story is told from Toru’s inner perspective, he nevertheless emits an aura of eccentric unpredictability in the way he responds to the things happening around him.

Norwegian Wood

The bulk of the story took place when Toru was studying literature in a Tokyo college. In Tokyo, he met his childhood friend Naoko, whom he shared a painful past and with whom he was emotionally entangled (it’s complicated). Through his bond with her, he sought to regain normalcy and recover from the past. Unfortunately, things do not always turn out for the best and happiness is not guaranteed even in fiction. He often found himself unsure about his choices and uncertain of even his own desires. He also met Midori in school, a cheerful and eccentric girl who seemed to contrast heavily with both himself and the deeply troubled Naoko.

I’m sure my description is doing a horrible job at conveying the feel of the novel — partly because I like to keep things non-specific so as to avoid spoilers — so I’ll just stop here and add that this typical-sounding setup is surprisingly engrossing when read in Murakami’s words. You can almost reach out and touch the characters as they try to communicate their souls through the imperfections of language.

Norwegian Wood

At this point, it is important to note that I read the English translation of Norwegian Wood by Jay Rubin, which I believe is the more recent version. The original Japanese version is sold in two volumes and I have read the first one. As my command of Japanese is more or less functional, I find that I enjoyed the English translation a great deal more. I chalk it up to my inability to react in the intended manner to the emotive nuances in Japanese. Maybe I should study Japanese Literature in college. Or not.

Norwegian Wood is a great book about loss beyond death and love beyond lust. Whether you are a teenager still searching for answers or a grizzly old fart hungry for nostalgia, there’s something in it for you to take home.

Now I need to figure out which one of Murakami’s works to read next.

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