false 60413582 231516 818108 0099448823 9780099448822 67 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178660171m/818108.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178660171s/818108.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/818108.Norwegian_Wood 3.92 529 Norwegian Wood is a simple coming of age tale set, primarily, in 1969/70, the time of Murakami's own university years. The political upheavals and student strikes of the period form the backdrop of the novel but the focus here is the young Watanabe's love affairs and the pain (and pleasure) of growing up with all its attendant losses, (self-)obsessions and crises.

The novel is split into two volumes and beautifully presented here in a "gold" box containing both the green book and the red book. Young Japanese fans became so obsessed with the work that they would dress entirely in one or other colour denoting which volume they most identified with. And the novel is hugely affecting, reading like a cross between Plath's Bell Jar and Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women, if less complex and ultimately less satisfying than Murakami's other, more allegorical, work. He captures the huge expectation of youth, and of this particular time in history, for the future and for the place of love in it. He also saturates the work with sadness, an emotion that can cripple a novel but which here underscores the poignancy of the work's rather thin subject matter. --Mark Thwaite]]> 3354 3.96 104266 11428 1987 4 0 false Sat Jun 20 09:37:15 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 13:50:45 -0700 2009