Norwegian Wood in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 18, 2020 Lauren⁷ 💜 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: library-has-a-copy, favorites, rm-namjoon-book-club

Literary comfort zones. We all have them. We all have our go to genres that we don’t venture out of much if ever at all. But we’d all be wise to do so. Because one can find something wonderful when one dares to do so. But sometimes it takes the unlikeliest motivation to push one out of one’s comfort zone. Like with me. I have become a huge fan of the K-pop group BTS in the past several months. One of the members, RM aka Kim Namjoon, is very well known for his love of reading. Being such a huge f Literary comfort zones. We all have them. We all have our go to genres that we don’t venture out of much if ever at all. But we’d all be wise to do so. Because one can find something wonderful when one dares to do so. But sometimes it takes the unlikeliest motivation to push one out of one’s comfort zone. Like with me. I have become a huge fan of the K-pop group BTS in the past several months. One of the members, RM aka Kim Namjoon, is very well known for his love of reading. Being such a huge fan, I quickly found several articles which gathered together all of his recommendations. Being Korean, he does read a lot of works by Korean authors which haven’t had the foreign rights sold and therefore haven’t been translated into English. So I immediately discarded those. Which is a shame as some do sound interesting and I’d like to read them. But I digress. Haruki Murakami has been on my literary radar for a long time. But I always shied away from his books because I know he’s known for being very out there and strange in his writing. And even his more normal books are far outside of my literary comfort zone. Namjoon has recommended several Murakami books. I looked into them all and chose Norwegian Wood because it seemed the most accessible and contains none of Murakami’s later trademark weirdness. I have nothing against weird. But I figured I’d test the Murakami waters first with something grounded. And. Well. I am deeply thankful to Namjoon for pushing me so far outside of my literary comfort zone. Because? Put simply? I loved this book! Even though this is so far outside of my comfort zone, I found myself completely captivated by it and I had a very hard time putting it down. Something about Murakami’s writing is really compelling and he just sucks you in. He’s a marvelously descriptive writer and really brings 1969-1970 Tokyo to life. And even though this is nothing fantastical at all, in fact it’s all rather mundane, something about his characters and overall writing style just draws one in. This book is overall pretty simple. But that’s okay. There’s beauty in simplicity. But at the same time, this is also pretty deep and thought provoking with much to say about death and grief. As well as mental illness. I tried to go into this book with as open a mind as is possible and I didn’t read any reviews beforehand. All I knew of it was the fact that it’s not weird and what the description said. That’s it. So I was surprised that this turned out to be as romantic as it is. Really surprised. But I liked it a lot. I didn’t really figure on a happy ending and I called Naoko’s suicide long before it happened. So, the ending didn’t entirely surprise me. But, ha, the eternal optimist in me chooses to imagine that Toru got together with Midori. I’m not totally happy with the ending. But given that this isn’t a romance novel, it does make sense. And there is something to be said for an open ending that’s left to the reader’s imagination as to what happens next. I was also surprised by just how much sex is in this book. Now, I am a long time romance reader, so it didn’t shock or upset me. I just wasn’t expecting it based on the kind of novel this is. Because there is quite a lot of sex in this book. And I realized that this is the first time I have ever read sex in this way. Meaning that I am quite used to sex scenes being in the context of a romance novel. But not in context of what is more just general fiction. I am well aware of the long, ignominious tradition of male authors writing some truly terrible sex scenes and descriptions of women’s bodies. Thankfully, there is none of that here. I found Murakami’s sex scenes to mostly be rather clinical and a tad bit awkward in a way. And his descriptions of women’s bodies are just normal guy stuff. But nothing terrible.
And speaking of women... He writes female characters really well and I quite liked what he did with Naoko, Reiko and Midori. Toru is a good narrator and though this book opens in 1987 and he then flashes back to 69-70, there is no navel gazing midlife crisis crap. Toru is a likable and interesting character with much to say. And I enjoyed spending 293 pages in his mind.
My only criticism remains the ending. I would have liked something more concrete. But otherwise? I loved this book and highly recommend it. And I will definitely read the other Murakami books Namjoon has recommended. ...more

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Jan 30, 2014 Karen rated it liked it

I don't know what I thought of this book. I love the melody of Norwegian Wood by the Beatles (I think the lyrics are somewhat silly), and the book was made into a movie. I just finished 1Q84, so you would think I would want to take a break from Murakami for a while, but I wanted to see what his other books were like. I liked 1Q84 so much better than this book. Murakami is a wonderful writer, but I didn't think much of the characters in this book. The women all seemed to be weak and needy. The me ...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Jessica rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: romantic, japan

I enjoy Murakami's work a lot, but this one fell flat for me - I guess I just couldn't connect to Toru's romantic struggles and kind of felt like both girls would have been better off to give him a miss. I can see why this would become a favorite if it catches you at the right point in your life, but I think I'm too old and romantically settled to click into this one. ...more

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