Michael's review of Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The only Murakami I'd read previous to this were New Yorker short stories, which I remember as kind of wickety-wack: thirtysomething accountant reflects on his life and finds himself on top of a raindrop chatting with anthropomorphized nitrogen, that sort of things. (Pls. note my memory is not very good.)
Anyway my Google-given understanding is that this book is somewhat of an exception in the Murakami canon, but it has little wickety and no wack. What it is is a teenage melodrama. A gorgeous one. The characters are not selfish, not quite. They're so absorbed with filling out and pinning down their own selves that to feel beyond the borders of self is an impossible effort. Throughout, there's a particularly teenage sense of hyperemotional detachment: of course love is a sad and tragic force, of course my only option is to not speak to others for months. This is how the world works, duh.
Anyway I have a hefty weepy teenager side and I loved it. Plus I shouldn't sell short the book's c...more
Anyway my Google-given understanding is that this book is somewhat of an exception in the Murakami canon, but it has little wickety and no wack. What it is is a teenage melodrama. A gorgeous one. The characters are not selfish, not quite. They're so absorbed with filling out and pinning down their own selves that to feel beyond the borders of self is an impossible effort. Throughout, there's a particularly teenage sense of hyperemotional detachment: of course love is a sad and tragic force, of course my only option is to not speak to others for months. This is how the world works, duh.
Anyway I have a hefty weepy teenager side and I loved it. Plus I shouldn't sell short the book's c...more
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