Book Title: Norwegian Wood
Author: Haruki Murakami
Translator: Jay Rubin
Year Published: 1987 (Japanese edition)
2000 (English edition)
Publisher: Kodansha Ltd. (Japan)
Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., New York (USA)
My Tidbits
There’s always a reason why a book is placed in the bestseller shelves. With my growing infatuation on fiction works, I decided to take home a copy of “Norwegian Wood”. After all, I didn’t have a chance to watch the movie on the silver screen (it has actor Kenichi Matsuyama starring in it!).
I have yet to watch the movie until this writing is posted, but “judging” from the trailer, it’s going to be an awesome movie =D
“Norwegian Wood” tells a tale of a complicated love set against the student movement in late 1960s. Watanabe Toru is a young university student who came to Tokyo for his studies. He lives in a dorm, which also provides an interesting story on its own. The object of his love devotion is Naoko, a beautiful and emotionally fragile girlfriend of his dead best friend, Kizuki. While the apathetic Toru is coping well when facing the hypocritical world, Naoko grows quieter and salvages herself in her own world. Along the way, a girl whose personality is the polar opposite of Naoko comes into Toru’s life. She is Midori, a fusion of zest and bluntness from History of Drama class. Naoko increasingly withdraws herself and admitted to a strange, phantasm-like sanatorium. Toru realizes that he still have so much hope on Naoko but finds himself strongly attracted to Midori. The tangled triangle love begins.
While reading this novel, I felt a sense of odd attachment to it. It feels rather weird now that I don’t know Toru’s schedule of the day. I don’t read Naoko’s letters to him anymore. Flashes of scenes were in front of my eyes due to the straightforward yet detailed descriptions. Following day-to-day activities of a monotonous student’s life may sound flat and ordinary. It’s just a love story between confused and passionate youngsters, isn’t it? Well, I was hypnotized =p
Using less decorative vocabularies don’t make a plot looks dull. His characters’ conversations are honest. The typical young adults. Midori’s desperate pleas to Toru (pg. 300 and pg. 346) reveal how vulnerable an emotion can be. An emotion that is often shielded behind a strong façade, because society teaches us so. Haruki Murakami also successfully wins the young readers’ hearts through exploring the dark sides of life. Depression, suicides, sexuality. Our young world is no stranger with them. To be honest, this is my first book that talks about sexuality in a somewhat relaxed way. No awkwardness here.
The book is not that gloomy, actually. I was kind of surprised to see the ‘cuteness’ of young love portrayed on the scenes. The ‘plain’ Toru is able to say such mushy things to Midori – who would ever think of that! =p and guess what, thanks to “Norwegian Wood”, I am sort of awaken now to question my fingers’ anatomy (pg. 314) =p
“Just remember my, life is a box of cookies.”
I shook my head a few times and looked at her. “Maybe because I’m not so smart, but sometimes I don’t know what the hell are you talking about.”
“You know, how they’ve got these cookies assortments, and you like some but you don’t like others? And you eat up all the ones you like, and the only ones left are the ones you don’t like so much? I always think about that when something painful comes up. ‘Now I just have to polish these off, and everything will be O.K.’ Life is a box of cookies.”
(Norwegian Wood, pg. 332)
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