Norwegian Wood in Around the World

Dec 26, 2014 Jibran rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: japanese

The novel is based on the suicide problem in young people - which is apparently endemic in Japanese culture - and the attendant mental illness that leads them to utter despair.

The narrator (a guy) has only two best friends at school: a guy and a girl, who are also a romantic couple. When the guy commits suicide at 17, the narrator by sheer chance finds himself comforting and taking care of the girl who starts to behave oddly after the tragedy, apparently due to sadness, but things turn for the w The novel is based on the suicide problem in young people - which is apparently endemic in Japanese culture - and the attendant mental illness that leads them to utter despair.

The narrator (a guy) has only two best friends at school: a guy and a girl, who are also a romantic couple. When the guy commits suicide at 17, the narrator by sheer chance finds himself comforting and taking care of the girl who starts to behave oddly after the tragedy, apparently due to sadness, but things turn for the worse when the girl suffers mental breakdown and gets admitted to a sanatorium for treatment. The rest of the story is the narrator’s attempt to put things to right and to bring the girl back to normal life - so at its heart it's a heartfelt love story.

It’s written in straightforward first person narrative and avoids the sort of surrealist storytelling flourishes Murakami is known for in his other major novels "Kafka on the Shore" and "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" - it's more grounded in realist mode.

However, there are a few things that got me thinking.

Murakami makes tons of references to Western classical music and American pop. The books which feature in the story, too, are mostly Western. Shouldn’t a novel about Japanese people set in Japan and written in Japanese should be more grounded in the Japanese culture, music and literature? One character who is a good maverick musician only plays Mozart and Bach and Beatles. The name of the novel itself is derived from Beatles’ song. The mentally ill girl liked the song and that is the only justification for naming the book so.

Sex is a recurrent theme. At times it feels the author is taking great pains, figuratively speaking, in describing the repetitive sexual encounters of his characters even when situations don’t call for it. In this novel everyone is trying to do it with everyone else. But I guess our modern readers don't think a work of fiction as well-rounded unless the story comes with a few erections and orgasms.

That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It's studded with beautiful sentences, startling interpretive utterances revealing complex situations with great ease - and for that one must appreciate the translator. It's a well-written, sad, moving and, at times, gripping story worth your time and money. ...more

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Mar 29, 2012 Shayantani rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite

I am experiencing Naoko’s difficulty in finding words to describe this novel. I will just play Beatles and Bach on repeat, ruminate in solitude and let the surreal feeing sink in before I can form coherent sentences again. Only Murakami and Marquez provoke such reactions, what is with these two authors and the power they wield through words.

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Apr 18, 2011 Preethi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: a-zillion-and-a-one-th, ebook, love-luuurve-lou, awesom-otic, classics-forever, own-a-copy, forever-favourites

Awesome love story. Am so glad I still love it as I used to love it.

Each of the characters in this book are well-etched, so well that you will remember them as real people long after the book is finished.
This book is about love, closures, patience and about a teenaged boy, as he plows through the life and love's ups and downs.
What goes through your loved ones' hearts when you leave them without an explanation, and how they deal with it to arrive at a closure, this book is an example to all this ...more

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Nov 28, 2014 Priya rated it liked it

A love story. Yeah, just that. No supernatural stuff. No unreal incidents. Bizarre, yes - the trademark Murakami plot is very much there and that's probably what makes this love story stand apart.

Unlike the other Murakami books I've read, I found myself wondering 'dude, where's the story' almost till the 60% mark. And then I gave up. Rather, gave in to the author. And that's how I figured out it is just a love story. But in true Murakami style.

I loved Toru Watanabe. He could very well be every ...more

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Feb 02, 2011 bharat pantula rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Ever since I came across Kafka on the shore and read it one day on a boring train journey, I had been waiting patiently for the right time to read Norwegian Wood.

Haruki Murakami can be an obsession, I'm told! I'd resisted that for almost 8 months with the hope that a day would come and I'd start reading this. And then it happened some days ago. Now I had almost waited a week for the feeling to sink in. It's not an emotionally engaging book perse, but it hinges on extremes ranging from drama to Ever since I came across Kafka on the shore and read it one day on a boring train journey, I had been waiting patiently for the right time to read Norwegian Wood.

Haruki Murakami can be an obsession, I'm told! I'd resisted that for almost 8 months with the hope that a day would come and I'd start reading this. And then it happened some days ago. Now I had almost waited a week for the feeling to sink in. It's not an emotionally engaging book perse, but it hinges on extremes ranging from drama to surrealism to love story to the story of an inherent loser.

I say loser because like Holden Caulfield, the comparison is inevitable, the protagonist here wants do mostly nothing. He's a college-going student with no real interest in his studies and one who knows who's gonna end up in a monotonous day job and he has nothing much forward to look for in life than books, movies and music. He's in short the normal guy who'd rather wait till the credits end in a movie 'cos he's got nothing to do after that.

And as of course, I like him. I like him a lot 'cos I'm reading this book at a critical juncture of my life. Not that this book's gonna help solve my problems, but it paints a real clear picture of what would happen of people like me.

Or you. Or of all the normal people, who wait for a miracle to happen. What we never realize is every morning when you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror you're witnessing a miracle. Life is not about death or about people who don't exist nomore in your life. It's about you, the people you are with and the happiness they bring into your life. It's about making a choice when you have to.

Because that train standing at that station is not gonna wait forever. So get yourself that ticket before it's too late.

Toru Wantanbe, who happens to narrate the story, is in many ways what I'd always been. He is your hide-out-in-the-back type of guy, whose taste in music and literature might freak some out. He's weird and he might even be socially retarded.

All this has reasons of course like it always does and I'm not gonna dwell into those. What I would rather do is concentrate on his relationships with people in his life, even if that's very limited.

(view spoiler) We never know.

By the way, if you're wondering what Norwegian Wood means, it's a song by The Beatles. A beautiful haunting song, with George Harrison playing Sitar, that's one of my absolute favorites.

...more

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May 03, 2016 Kate Z added it

I tried this book 3 times and just could not get into it.

Usually the first person point of view gives me a feeling of intimacy with a character but in this case I feel like I was always at arms length. The main character, Wantanabe, narrates his life in a monochromatic way with all the enthusiasm of a grocery list. I felt like I was reading the book in iambic pentameter: duh-dah, duh-dah, duh-dah, duh-dah, duh-dah ... The book is populated by all these odd, flat characters. Dialog does not seem ...more

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