Norwegian Wood

by Haruki Murakami

shudder

Washed clean of summer’s dust by days of gentle rain, the mountains wore a deep, brilliant green. The October breeze set white fronds of head-tall

desiccated

tumbled

cicada

pang

dread.

heaped

unworldly

matriculation

dodge,

stunt

swindling

reverentially

grime

resignation,

knot-of-air

Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.

Until that time, I had understood death as something entirely separate from and independent of life. The hand of death is bound to take us, I had felt, but until the day it reaches out for us, it leaves us alone. This had seemed to me the simple, logical truth. Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there. The night Kizuki died, however, I lost the ability to see death (and life) in such simple terms. Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that.

Becoming serious was not the same thing as approaching truth, I sensed, however vaguely.

frills

flair

chic.

We forged straight ahead, as if our walking were a religious ritual meant to heal our wounded spirits.

duffle

razz

barrage

others were out on Saturday nights, so the lobby was usually deserted. I would stare at the grains of light suspended in that silent space, struggling to see into my own heart.

What did I want? And what did others want from me? But I could never find the answers. Sometimes I would reach out and try to grasp the grains of light, but my fingers touched nothing.

it began to lose some of its initial luster and yielded first place to The Great Gatsby.

voracious

had the baptism of time.

you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That’s the world of hicks and slobs. Real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that. Haven’t you noticed, Watanabe? You and I are the only real ones in the dorm. The other guys

He knew how to stand at the head of the pack, to assess the situation, to give precise and tactful instructions that others would obey. Above his head hung an aura that revealed his powers like an angel’s

adulation

amazing loftiness and an irredeemable man of the gutter.

disseminating

spigot.

warped.

Once that first tear broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream.

She and I had probably needed each other more than either of us knew, which was probably why our relationship had taken such a major detour and become, in a sense, warped.

The warmth and closeness I felt for you at that moment was something I had never experienced before.

sprawled

cavern

those girls, I thought about Naoko, about the white shape of her naked body in the darkness, her sighs, the sound of the rain. The more I thought about these things, the hungrier my body grew. I went up to the roof with my whiskey and asked myself where I thought I was heading.

so worked up about things.

Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it.

on the verge of death.

sluice.

barricades