Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami REVIEW
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Murakami's Art of Fiction interview with the Paris Review (most of the interview is behind a paywall, but the questions about NW that I mention in the video come at the very beginning, and are visible to all):
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A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
I’ve read almost all of Murakami’s fictional works and I find that the problems you mentioned persist throughout his catalogue. His narrators/protagonists tend to have a very passive mindset and their relationships with women are almost always sexual, which also makes the female characters in his novel not as fleshed out imo. Having said that, I think a lot of people (me included) read Murakami’s works for their surreal atmosphere and the way he describes a sort of magic in the mundane.
What I found most obnoxious is that everyone especially Midori keeps praising Watanabe as if he is a man womankind have been waiting for. Moreover, every female in his circle keeps justifying his self-centered detached attitude as endearingly 'weird'.
So excited to see your take on this book that literally changed my life. Norwegian Wood is a private book for me. I had a crush on a girl at my senior high school, and somehow I felt the same vacancy deep inside her that I only felt in Naoko in literature world. She was happy on the face but didn't have passion for any thing or anyone. Seem to have some fairly close friend but no one knew her really and after we graduate, none of her friends know where she went and have any contact with her anymore. She just seemed nice with everything while not wanting to really build connection with anything and anyone. We all felt there might be some trauma inside her but not knowing what it could be. Since we don't have any way to find her now( changed phone number, no any social media account), I guess I would never find out what happened. I was a stupid asshole that I screwed something back then that I still carried regret in me. I go to Norwegian Wood every time those memory come back to me, though I wouldn't really finish it again cause it's too heavy for me.
I don't talked about this sh*t much but thankfully I somehow felt this is a place. These is just a personal story so I guess it might not helping. But thanks anyway, simply for my favorite book reviewer read the book that means the most to me. Does it make sense?LOL
Great review. Personaly I think that the book is about nihilism in Toru and Naoko after their best friend killed himself. Both of them become aloof and disinterested in real world. They find in each other someone who would understand the way they feel, and see the world similarly. It's also a love story where she doesn't love him back, actually she never loved him at all. Same as the song 'Norwegian Wood' by Beatles, which the book is named after.
I have a complicated relationship with Murakami, as will probably be obvious from the length of this comment. I moved to Japan five years ago and consequently started reading more Japanese literature, including Murakami. The first book I read was The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and loved it, I found it quirky without being frivolous, and pleasantly accessible without necessarily detracting from the complexity of its content.
After that I read Kafka On The Shore and though it was just the same novel with a different mask. Then I read the memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and thought the same thing. A friend of mine read 1Q84 and it sounded like another copycat novel. A story about a normal guy, not unattractive but not a incredibly handsome, who is successful with women, but not a womanizer, and likes jazz. He probably can cook, but is not great at it. Sure, one book has a boy that can talk to cats, another has a soldier who fought in Korea, another is about the author himself and the marathons he runs, but they are the same person, and seem to face the same conflicts. The writing style never changed either. This is why, a third of the way through Norwegian Wood, I gave up on the book. I had given Murakami too many chances already.
The parallels themselves though, are not a valid reason to dislike the novels. You could say Franz Kafka has similarities in all his work, you could say it about Dickens, but I love those authors. David Foster Wallace is one of my favourites, and you could certainly accuse him of never changing his voice or writing style throughout his career. It feels more that the novels, and this echoes your review of Norwegian Wood, lack introspection on the main issues. And while this lack made the protagonist of the first novel I read fascinating, the more it repeated itself I though that maybe this is a flaw with the writer, who either lacks this introspection or chooses to avoid it to the detriment of his works. It is the rare case where reading more books by the author of a book you loved ends up ruining that same book.
Another, very personal, issue I started having was that I realised I would've loved these books when I was sixteen, not yet intelligent or aware enough to spot the issues, and in some cases the objectification and misoginy, in these works, which means the books started making me dislike myself as well as the books themselves!
In spite of this negativity, I am actually considering to give Norwegian Wood a second chance, mainly due to finding a rare translation by Alfred Birnbaum. To give an idea, beginning on the famous Jay Rubin translation is 'I was 37 then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched the earth, lending everything the gloomy air of a Flemish landscape: the ground crew in waterproofs, a flag atop a squat airport building, a BMW billboard. So - Germany again.'. Birnbaum starts 'Here I am, 37 years old, seated in a Boeing 747. The giant plane is diving into a thick cover of clouds, about to land at Hamburg airport. A chill November rain darkens the land, turning the scene into a gloomy Flemish painting. The airport workers in their rain gear, the flags atop the faceless airport buildings, the BMW billboards, everything. Just great, I'm thinking, Germany again.' I guess I'm hoping the different style of the translations will allow the birth of a new interpretation. We will see.
I have read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and after that 1Q84 and I found them very different in respect to the story and the topics. I think the Bird Chronicle is the better novel, but you could debate about that.
I have read Hear The Wind Sing and Pinball (both journeyman novels), Norwegian Wood (intrigued enough to want to read more), Colourless Tzukuru (enjoyed) and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (enjoyed a lot). I’m aware that Murakami is possibly over-prolific and I’m sure I’ll get sick of him eventually but at the moment I’m looking forward to reading more.
Ciao Mattia, i finished the book yesterday, it was my first Murakami. Most of your observations resonated in me. I am swimging between i loved the book and i found some aspects superficials or too artificials. Maybe i lack a lot of knowledge of Japanese culture to fully appreciate the symbolism and some of the meanings. I remeber some passages as very poetic and others unbielevably flat. Nevertheless it is happening something that to me happened with very few novels: I can't let it go and move on. It is stuck in my head and i crave hearing and reading comments about it. There is a profound sadness about this book that is repulsive and attractive at the same time, like a vertigo.
Ciao Fabrizio - that happens sometimes, I can relate to it! Some books just resonate with you a lot even when you are not fully convinced by them (or you even flat-out dislike some aspects of them)!
Just stumble to your channel through the magic of the youtube algorithm and I'm really happy about it, altho I´m not a person who is a literature expert by any means, I often ponder about the books I read, Norwegian Wood certainly is one of them (Tokio Blues is the name of the novel in Spanish).Here are my thought about it. I'm a native spanish speaker and it took a bunch of time to write this comment (very rarely I comment on a video), but I really enjoy your perspective, and there are very few people in my life who I can comment on this sort of thing. So, pardon me if my english it's a little broken, I´m very rusty on the grammar and the writing part of the language.
1.- I Read Norwegian Wood quite a while ago and I have a special place in my heart for Murakami's work because it's the author who took me back to reading books as a form of reflexion and enjoyment. I read almost all of his books ("Killing the commendatore" its the one that I miss) I the thing that I notice with its work is that you can separate two big tendencies in his work. On one hand you have novels like Norwegian Wood that are centered in recollecting memories of the past, in particular relations significant with the protagonist, that are realistic in nature. On the other hand you have novels that are oniric and almost surreal, where the characters are involved in sort of weird scenarios. Norweigian wood it's the prototypical novel of the first kind, in my opinion the novel of that type that really stands out from the bunch it "South of the border, East of the sun". My favorite one is "The Wind-up bird chronicle" which is from the other type.
2.- I agree, It's quite a mellow novel with a very passive protagonist, and enjoyable to read, It has a very teenage vibe to the "romantic" and sexual tone concerning Watanabe relationship with women, But the reflexion of the duel of losing a close person to you and the survivor's guilt that you mention i spot on, it was my favorite part.
3.- I think that the detachment of the character form everything that surrounds it and the self-centered perspective that Watabane carries throughout the novel, reflects more on the duel and the coping mechanism that Watanabe employs rather than the selfishness of the person itself, but I can agree with you that at the bottom he is a selfish egocentric person, but most important I think, is that he is a lonely person, the feeling I got from reading this book it's that the narrator is very isolated from everything, because it wants to be so, and everything that surrounds its just to pass the time. It's not necessarily a shallow person, just someone who is not at peace with his past and doesn't want to.Sure, it's not the healthiest way to mourn someone and move on, but it's a way to do it. I took it from that perspective and more than a mellow tone to the book, for me it has a "greyish" tone to it. All the things and all the turmoils that surround a person that wants to be isolated are some sort of "white noise". Some sort of a "Hedgehog's dilemma" sort of speak.
Keep up the good work, I really enjoy your take on the book, gonna watch some of your reviews. Greetings from Mexico
Yeah, it actually reminded me a lot of catcher in the Rye which I didn’t particularly enjoy. Though I am a female so maybe that has something to do with my perception of it. To me it’s so very manic Pixie dream girl fantasy, which we see so much of in films today, books too of course
yes, as a woman, i agree
It's a double whammy. We got both Manic Pixie Girl and Ethereal Translucent Dying Girl tropes.
oh my gosh i literally finished the book 5 minutes ago, well this worked out pretty well... by the way, great review!
Same but 2 years later
I love this review! You should try The Wind Up Bird Chronicle! It has been my favorite Murakami work by quite a lot. It changed my reading life when I was younger, I would love your take on this book!
I agree. I've read several of his novels and WuBCh was the best.
Loved the review
I finished this earlier today and was so on the fence on how I felt about it but you've voiced it perfectly ! I totally agree with it being a good novel but not a great novel. I feel as though it contained snippets of wisdom (especially surrounding the theme of death) and the way that Murakami did this, I found to be very beautiful. In general, I really enjoyed his style and his prose. However, it is the 'teenage boy' element that made me question how much I enjoyed the novel. Its is clear that all the female protagonists were dealing with serious issues however I felt as though Watanabe always remembered women in relation to what they have done to his penis. Likewise, female pleasure was rarely explored. I know it is a male narrator but surely its not impossible to think about female pleasure also. I dont know if thats a very annoying point to make but it really stood out to me. Also, sometimes I found some sexual scenes just simply unnecessary and ,to be frank, a little confusing. Despite this, I did enjoy reading this novel and I thought that Murakami included some lovely moments which made an impact on me. I definitely feel as though it is a novel I will have to revisit in a few years to really make a concrete opinion on. Excellent video ! Thank you so much !
Thank you for your comment Vanessa - I was afraid my opinion might be a bit "controversial" but I'm glad to read that many other readers had a similarly ambivalent experience with the book!
I enjoyed the intense love dialogue, but your comment exactly is right. As I kept reading I quickly realized how male-gazey it felt. Like everything he said about the 3 women of his life were all about their bodies and how great they made him feel lol. Like I was over it real quick.. as a man I would have loved a bit more female pleasure. It's weird, the women were all tormented in some way and they also all fell for him at one point. It just seemed like a college guy jumping from girl friend to girl friend and eventually sexual tension ends up bubbling to the surface.. ehh.. first 4 chapters I thought it was going to be a 7/10 but I came away thinking it was more like 4/10 by the end. A bit too male-centric overall.
TheBookchemist, great channel! Your opinions on Norwegian Wood were very close to mine. If you have a chance please do a review of Natsume Soseki's "I am a Cat". I would love to hear your thoughts on this book!
I read Norwegian Wood after reading Kafka on the Shore and to me the former is everything I didn't like about the latter and not much more.
A lot of it reads very much like a self-insert fantasy and it is very bourgeois. When my professor called it bourgeois in class I didn't get what she meant, but it is present in Kafka on the Shore (trucker becomes enlightened after listening to classical music for a bit) and it permeates Norwegian Wood. I think the detached attitude you talk about also fits that mood: no real investment because the political problems don't really affect the character directly.
The way Murakami writes women and sexual relations irks me personally. The women in the books I read of his, especially in Norwegian Wood, never feel like people. If this was true for all characters that would be interesting, but if it is only ever women and most women that matter in the story at that, it feels a bit weird.
Norwegian Wood kinda turned me off Murakami, eventhough his writing style is interesting to me.
Totally agree! I recently read Gli indifferenti, by Alberto Moravia, which tackles heads-on that feeling of indifference, laziness and self-absorption at the heart of bourgeois life - and Norwegian Wood is clearly set in the same sort of world, but without any self-awareness, and in fact with quite a few apologies for that way of living.
@@TheBookchemist I'll make sure to add that one to my reading list. It sounds like a (to me) more interesting approach to those bourgeois themes. Thanks for the recommendation!
the thing is even men in the book doesnt feel real like nagasawa to me he just seems more like an idea than a person
I recall a scene in the book where Toru and Midori discuss how the maxist club Midori went to, was itself bourgeois and hypocritical. They criticize the seemingly verbose nature of Marx's work and his followers. Midori wishes to understand the ideology (as a working class woman) but finds it difficult due to how pretentious it is for her. I'm just curious as to understand your views on that scene and it's depiction, considering it is sort of critiquing the bourgeois nature of that particular marxist club?
great review, I felt exactly the same a good book with some terrible passages, hate how he deals with women's sexuality
Oooooh, I've been waiting for this one, thanks for reviewing! I really recommend Kafka on the shore
What a new perspective on a book I figured was set in stone as 'Classic, Untouchable Murakami'. You should check out Kafka on the Shore by Murakami, its alot more playful structurally and metaphorically on top of being a great surrealist read.
I finished the book three days ago, I find it a great book on celebrating and bringing respect to the dead, but also about celebrating the greatest mysteries of life. I loved how Murakami focused and channelled his energies to describe the emotions and first experiences. For me, it was an experience that was really close to me sometimes even though I cried, and suffered I wanted to live the same experiences for me the symbolism of death is well depicted, and at the end of the book endeared me to those themes.
Themes which most of the time are not that much spoken of or feared, and therefore avoided. Sorry for the grammatical mistakes!
kafka on the shore, hardboiled wonderland, 1q84, and killing commendatore are my personal favs and i reccomend them
If you liked Kafka on the Shore, definitely read David Mitchell's Number9dream!
I just completed the book recently.
The book left me with a strange feeling...(like I felt numb)... And I think the end is a little confusing as it is an choice given to the readers....I think Toru called Midori when he was 37 at the airport....When he reached airport and then all his memories are back and he is stuck in his 20s......
Suddenly he may have an urge to call Midori and to start a new life.....And it was when Midori asked him where he was .....he realized that he was in his fantasy all these years. ......He had not reached anywhere and was in the middle of a bunch of unknown people .Then he reliZed that he had no one expect Midori....that is why he called HER from the dead centre or his empty heart......Midori was always a girl of life and breath..... and lets hope he began a new life with Midori..
I read this about a month ago on vacation and it felt very plain at the time but your characterization of "coolness" is spot on for me. The entire book has a nostalgic haze that is pleasant upon reflection but barely came through on first reading.
Giving Murakami the absolute benefit of the doubt, the horrible explorations of women's sexuality could be viewed as a flaw of Watanabe as an uninterested person since he is the narrator. I am open to believe he is unreliable but considering this book has semi-autobiographical elements, I don't think it was an intended feature. I think his lack of reflection as an adult really hurt the book overall. Its as if we teleport from the plane straight to Tokyo in the 60s.
This was my first Murakami and I plan on starting 1Q84 in the coming days. Great review as always.
Also, the 68 movement is much more important in Europe than anywhere in the world from my understanding but I have no clue what was happening in Japan at that time either
This is a brilliant review. I definitely enjoyed the book, however the last interaction Toru had with Reiko honestly ruined the novel for me. I had hoped that their relationship with keep to a sibling dynamic, with Toru looking up or seeking Reiko for advice as she did for him in previous chapters, but ultimately faltered this concept by making them sleep together. Arguably one of the most compelling characters becomes just another muse for Toru. So poorly executed and comes out of no where. It’s almost disrespectful to the character of Naoko since the two are only joined together out of mutual friendship to her. And of all times that they’re having a funeral for her. Murakami is a brilliant writer - but it’s quite evident that he’s never spoken to a woman before.
It's really interesting to watch this as someone who read NW as my first Murakami novel and absolutely loved it, though I found it EXTREMELY bleak the first time round. So much of the discussion around Norwegian wood is rightly about it's flatness; the characters ESPECIALLY the protagonist Toru is sleepy and dry and (boring), the characters are either withdrawn into a place that he can't reach with understanding or display themselves filtered through toru's disinterest to produce a distasteful, almost satiristic display of themselves. But nobody goes far enough to me- it's all painfully flat, it doesn't really 'go' to places, the sex scenes are described like you're trying to remember what a lurid sexual encounter actually felt like. Toru is detached- from others, the world around him. The book is a lesson in the pain of schizoid withdrawal.
When I read it the second way round, a narrative for the novel fell together for me through the quote very early on that 'death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life'. This is just a platitude in isolation, but surrounded by the themes of withdrawal (self-centredness, detachedness) and next to his meditation that 'part of what Kizuki had shared when we were 16 and 17 had already vanished', shows that he withdraws from the world *because he is tormented by the idea that the dead still exist in relation to the living, that things don't stay dead when the living march on without them. The third time through, I read it as a ghost story slowly catching up to itself, where the love and desire of the living is shaped by their eternal relationship with the dead. The spectral triad of Kizuki-Toru-Naoko is repeated aimlessly because of the parts of the self that 'lie beyond'; Kizuki and Naoko's relationship was one of codependent fusion to each other, an 'absorbing and sharing of each other's egos'- this is why sex disappears in their relationship and appears as such a consistent theme, as it is emblematic about the contradiction between imperfect muddy fusion, and perfect, untouchable isolation. You see this in the first Naoko-Toru sex scene, before she leaves; 'I want to explain to her... 'we are sharing our imperfection. ... I was able to feel inside her body some kind of stony foreign matter, something extra that I could never draw close to.' This is what Naoko eventually chooses. She urges Toru to remember her to take a form through Toru that will not change through the Time of the living so that a form finally arrives before her that doesn't blow away, that doesn't blow through her (i could also speak for hours on the motif of the breeze and its relation to the dream)- the novel begins with defeat, that Toru is forgetting, and Naoko is truly dying.
To be disappointed by the book as it's lack of engagement with the world- i think you are into magical realism which absolutely makes sense with that- is understandable, but for me it's probably the truest capturing of who Murakami is as a person. It is absolutely self-centred and detached, but in the Norwegian Wood we all are. You mentioned the metaphysical status of the Norwegian Wood as being somewhere where Naoko freezes, but I am confident that Toru is in there too, but perpetuated by the fact that he never leaves either. The world is pathetic and colourless when seen from behind castle walls. I am planning to read Colourless Tsukuru at some point, and expect something similar.
I'm not editing this for fear I won't post it, so rip it apart
The end is very open ended.. N last bit of sexual relation shared with reiko was unnecessary..! Naoko N midori are very opposite characters.. Initially while reading I felt more tilted towards midori character N by end of book I felt tilted towards naoko.. I adored charater of midori initially.. But later when she convinces toru to choose her over naoko, that I felt a lil selfish..
Agree!!
I just finished the book tonight and have felt the same way…I don‘t know what I can really say about the book, astonished about the great reputation it has??
God, I love your reviews.
those weird, almost anime like sex scenes are present in quite literally every murakami book and i feel like its just something you have to deal with if you want to enjoy his writing. i too think he portrays sex in a way that sort of feels like a teenagers wet dream. a lot of dialogues that take place during those scenes are like straight out of a creepy anime and the way he portrays female characters is sometimes just ridiculous which i think has a lot to do with japanese culture. that being said, i think his books have this way of making you relate to the main character which makes them an extremely enjoyable and immersive read. his world building, nostalgic way of writing and insightful observations definitely make up for the sometimes unnecessary sex and make me want to pick up one of his other books
I very much agree!
I found it and Watanabe to be extraordinarily sad. The whole novel really. The tragic events at the start of his story, that don’t get fleshed out for us until later, absolutely WRECK him as a young man. It’s an incredibly complicated situation to be in and especially when you’re so young. Just imagine.
Without spoilers I’ll say, think of what our protagonist goes through from the start of the book and slightly beyond and ask yourself how you’d feel and how you’d act and how you might come across to others all the while going through some intense and very emotionally complicated things.
So I got that about him right away. This shy normal boy only ever had his one friend and that friend had a girlfriend who our protagonist secretly loved. They “break him out of his shell” when they’re together and it’s a beautiful thing. That is absolutely shattered. How is he to go on?
Yet he does and the rest of it, the aforementioned aloofness and his whole demeanor after is an attitude of repression. He’s repressed his feelings about his best friend and about the girl he’s infatuated with and he’s simply put: doing the best he can. He can’t really be bothered, he’s just sort of stumbling along trying this and trying that and seeing what works because hey it works for the rich fuckboy so maybe it’ll work for me too so I’ll try it. It’s incredibly sad. All he really wants is her and he can’t have her and then he can and then he can’t again and it’s incredibly hard on Watanabe.
I think that drives literally all of the novel and addresses your points as well, sir. This is an emotionally stunted and fucked up young man who is doing what he NEEDS to do to get by but also trying everything under the sun to simply try to thrive or live and be normal because he’s young, why shouldn’t he?
Other than that, I got the vibe regarding the actual sexual content or scenes that it was more of Murakami’s writing that way for whatever reason. Your own conclusions suffice there. I didn’t feel like it was too much especially when it came to the narrator and this person who holds up as angelic. There are even shifts. Watanabe is a normal guy, nice but not exactly romantic but think about or read the parts where he’s with HER. It’s like being with her and in another way, being with her and his deceased best friend was the only time that the narrator ever truly felt like himself. That he was accepted and that he belonged.
Sorry for length, I may have forgotten a thing or two but what I’ve just laid out are all the reasons I love the book. I love the characters despite their flaws and why I keep coming back to thinking that yes there is beauty, there’s some pain of growing up and even some discomfort from being so stubborn and selfish when it comes to so many things. Yet at the end of the day, it’s an extremely sad book. It’s nostalgic and it’s sad but it does manage to end on hope. Even when Watanabe is “far gone” and he doesn’t see a way back after having been this self-centered dickhead for so long and how he’s possibly ruined the only good healthy and LIVING relationships in his life, he finds it in himself to do the next right thing and to TRY. He’s got to try to make things right with his latest companion because there are real things there, real friendship, real challenge, real companionship, real love in honesty. So by getting there in the end, I see a tremendous amount of hope at least. Even a bit cheesy!
I really enjoyed this one, but as a whole Murakami is tricky, and I do not like most of the novels I've read of his. However, Kafka on the shore is splendid and by itself a marvelous achievement for the author.
“The Great Tosser Novel of All Time” is now how I’ll introduce this book whenever it comes up during dinner parties. ✊
The only two Murakami books I've read are Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore (I have The Wind-up Bird Chronicle on my shelf though), and the second one is undoubtedly the better one. Murakami gets a lot of shit for his depictions of female characters, and NW is a prime example of that, most girls are in the story with the sole purpose of satiating Watanabe's sexual desire.
Despite all of that, Murakami holds a special place in my heart since KotS has been my gateway drug to harder literature: his books are fairly unusual and have a unique charm, but they read very easily and require little stamina. It's thanks to him that I read One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Midnight's Children... And of course, Thomas Pynchon starting next week!
Good Review... 📚👍🏾📖✌🏾🔖
I love your bookshelf
In March of this year, I addressed Mr. Murakami with these words: "...I read your novel Norvegian Wood in 2009. Since then I often think of one sentence from the novel that made me suspect that Naoko is the targeted individual. Is it she the only one? These are the words that Toru Watanable uttered and which related to Naoko: ' Why don' t they leave her alone?' In the state where I live when it says 'they' it means - the secret political police, not illustrated since communism, which governs human lives and takes them away".
I just read the book again. There is no dilemma for me anymore. With "hearing voices" or "voice -to- skull", with that severe depression and signs of bipolar behavior, with suicides indicating a orchestrated suicides, Murakami's heroes are the targets of inhumane experiments on humane or victims of some political persecution. I would believe it even if Murakami denied it. This is one of the rights that cannot be taken away from us (at the moment) - to read as we feel, to think that we, target individuals, are experts by experience.
I think you hit it precisely when you mention the teenage fantasy aspect in this book. I wonder if the novelist was not only thinking of money, but actually developing a young adult fan base from which to present his other works. Kind of savvy, really. I so want you to read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, then Kafka on the Shore, and then - ta-da! - The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. Then please talk about them. I found Norwegian Wood forgettable in contrast to these others. Thank you for talking about Murakami. ✌️
I think that the fact the whole story is being told in retrospective is just nonsense. Like he just wantes to make the novel longer, I see no point in the first pages saying that the is now 30ish, there'es no story there, it only works as a good entrance, an interesting beggining that does not improve the narrative as one separate item. Also, the characters are not really properly treated, at least in my opinion, they seem to not change, not grow. All in all, leaving this aside, the book tells an interesting story that people can like and grow a taste for. Good video, man.
In regards to the story being told in retrospective, although I would mostly agree with it being nonsense, it does allow that final line of the first chapter to hit super hard which really sent me spinning early on (and made me enjoy the rest of the novel a lot more than I probably would've otherwise as I was so invested so early on)
There doesn't need to be a story to make it enjoyable tho. Unless you only care about the story
This caused me to think about Watanabe and if I felt the same what you are describing. And to be honest, I didn't feel he was detached and therefore a bad person in any way. I think some people are just like that, they are less intense in their social relationships. Their world is more isolated from the world around them, that's how they feel. At least that's how I understood the portrait of the character from the way Murakami wrote it. That is not to say that I can relate to it, I am personally not like that. But I believe there are many people like Watanabe and it is ok. It shouldn't make them a bad person, right?
Another thought I had after I had read this book and discussed it with friends (all of us coming from western culture), is that perhaps it is just very difficult for us to relate to and understand the book because it is about Japanese people and by a Japanese author. What you call fake in your video, for example the way the guy is so attractive and the women are just drawn to him and cannot resist him, maybe that's how it is in Japan? I don't know. On the other hand, remembering another Japanese book: The Sound of Waves, I didn't feel the descriptions were alien to me. So I m not sure, maybe it is Murakami's writing. I only read this one book from him, and I didn't enjoy it as well. I also heard that he is famous for bad sex scenes...
One last thing I will mention: what's with that character of Reiko? The older musician lady. I felt her sooty was unnecessary complicated and too fictional, that the sole purpose was to shock the reader and she didn't add to the big picture. Unfortunately I was disappointed with this book :(
Murakami's hero likes Great Gatsby a lot and i believe it is important. Also he is compared with Humphry Bogard. These are keys to understand his character.
I mostly took from it the survivor's guilt and suicide themes but it's fair that those other things bothered you. I always found the protagonist more of a non-entity to experience this world by
love this review. just finished norwegian wood, my first murakami, and i'm pretty disappointed
same
SO disappointed. i thought it was just trashy. i think some of the reviewers here are really giving the author WAY too much intellectual credit. trash
I stopped reading Murakami after about 8 books because I realized the author is repeating the same set of themes and reproducing characters over and over again, without ever carefully developing these in any way. In some reviews, people like to go really deep into, say, the symbolical meanings of events in his books. But I tend to find this a useless task in Murakami, because he always seems to just stitch together disparate elements (a "normal" guy who likes Jazz here, a cat there, a talking animal there, an unstable sex-obsessed woman there etc.) until he has written something resembling a completed novel. In short, his books seem entirely convincing to me: there is very little thought and love behind the sentences, situations, characters, plots. That "detached" attitude you mentioned, is always present.
That being said, when I was 15, Kafka on the Shore was the first "adult" (?) novel I ever read, and it was what made me start reading, so there is that. But Murakami is something one should grow out of, I think, which I did.
What do you guys think about the ending!!
Start with the TheBookchemist's intellect, mix in some workout routines to make sure we've got a hot bod, include a bit of explicit sex, don't forget the unnecessarily dark and disturbing violence, sneak in a dry well and stuff it all into a protagonist who's 15-20yo and all caught up in the struggles of living in such a confusing world and that's Murakami.
In Wind-Up bird we get a guy who quits his job, neglects his wife and spends most of the novel feeling sorry for himself. In South of the Border we get a guy who's gifted a wonderful job by his father-in-law and who goes on to repay that favor by having an affair with a customer. In Kafka we get a kid who bones a chick he thinks might be his sister as well as a woman who might possibly be his mom. For whatever the protagonist of Norwegian Wood is, he's certainly not the most detestable of Murakami's male leads.
The question is whether we're supposed to notice this and feel any animosity towards these characters or just sympathize with their particular circumstances. It's pretty normal to finish a Murakami book and think (1) that was pleasurable reading, (2) I'm kind of on edge because it's unclear how things worked out and (3) I kinda don't like that main character.
Italian postmodern recommendations? Grazie!
The Name of the Rose ;)
@@Scede that one is too obvious, but thank you anyway. I am looking for some contemporary authors/living ones hehe
I honestly don't know (past the obvious Eco and Calvino)! I'm utterly helpless when it comes to contemporary Italian literature :(
@@TheBookchemist Ok no problem, thanks for the response anyway. Let’s just call Don Delillo fully Italian ;)
Niccolò Ammaniti is pretty good: Che La festa cominci, io non ho paura, come dio comanda
You should've read A wild sheep chase first. You read the sequel so ofc it doesn't make much sense.
I'd compare Norwegian Wood to a little weird indie movie that only wants to paint an aesthetic, while the rest of his work are David Lynch, specially Wind-up Bird (as bloated as it is). In wind-up the protagonist is also aloof to the world, even if so much of the book is devoted to awful ww2 atrocities, it's almost as though Murakami was interested in writing a war novel, but had to finish Wind-up so he crammed one in, it's very jarring and honestly ruined the 3rd book for me, it's barely subtextual and it means nothing to the character, he's just a sponge sitting on a couch listening to some irrelevant character go through a 50 page monologue.
I'd say plunge into Kafka straight away though, it offers all the best of Murakami without the bloatedness of his other novels.
It’s just edgy throwback YA and better than other ones in that genre.
Reiko Ishida is an overlooked character. Do not trust her. She probably has something untold related to Naoko.
OMGGGGG CLOCK IT
Books and literature in general are not reality. Even non fiction is a very subjective. It seems naïve to try and describe fictional "people" as if they were real. Having said that, a novel will only bring forth in you what is already there, allowing you to discover something about yourself. An opinion about a book says more about the reviewer than about the book.
Dis you read it in English or Italian?
English!
Didn't like it when even I enjoyed Murakami's works.
I didn't enjoy the book at all and it might be my last Murakami for quite a while. His portrayal of women was absolutely insufferable to me. Not only do they not exist outside of sexual contests, but all of them are just victims, in one way or another. I don't see this as a part of teenage wishfulfillment rendering Watanabe their hero saviour - because he isn't helping anyone. He's not a real dick, he's more the kind of passive asshole that just accepts the bad things. The women constantly offer themselves to him to be used. Even if they, like Naoko, have reasons not to have sex right now, they still go out of their way to pleasure him.
Also, what is it with Murakami and teenage sex? Granted, Watanabe turned 21, but he's still kind of a kid in my mind. It was a lot worse with Kafka on the Shore. Reading such explicit scenes about them makes me feel... weird.
completely agree.
it gave me that "is this necessary?" feeling. i don't think the sex added any dimension to the characters & was simply trashy.
I think this is just an overhyped YA novel tbh
I loved Murakami's writing. Honestly, it was the most interesting writing I've come across in my three-year reading journey. However, it took me about three/four months to read the book because of the way it portrays women. It's completely disgusting. They are nothing more than sexual objects for the main character - so much so that when he thinks about them, he only remembers sexual things. I mean, the main character is in love with x woman and can only remember how wonderful her body was or how wonderful the handjob she gave him was? Ew. Ew. Ew. Not to mention that many people felt immense sadness and reflected throughout this book, not me. I didn't feel a single drop of sadness throughout the book. The characters were indifferent to me. I couldn't make a connection with them. I would like to understand the fascination with this book and the author, but I intend to never pick up one of his books again.
I found it jarring and disjointed.
This books sucks! I didn't get the hype at all. 2 stars at Max.
i thought this book was trashy.