Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami

This is the novel which catapulted Murakami from a cosy six-figure readership to literary stardom in his native Japan. Widely touted as a 'love story', a simple 'love story' it ain't. The protagonist, Toru Watanabe, takes us back twenty years to the time when he was a 19-year-old student hurtling towards the big two-oh with all the sexual and societal angst that that entails. He's in love with Naoko, but Naoko is in a sanitorium where it's not clear who are the doctors and who are the patients. During a visit, Toru meets one of Naoko's teachers, Reiko, a woman almost twice his age who comes to exercise a degree of Svengaliesque attraction over him. In the meantime, he has met Midori, who fancies him like hell, problem being though that he's waiting for Naoko, while, lurking in the background, is his room-mate's girl, Hatsumi.

Sort that one out. We're put in the mind of a young guy trying to make sense of life and deal with all the problems of relationships while trying to get through university. Like his namesake in "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle", Toru is the existentialist loner, which doesn't make matters any easier. The only (male) person he has to discuss things with is his room-mate Nagasawa, which doesn't really help matters any, since more often than not, the two of them end up doing the bars and taking girls back to love hotels.

"Norwegian Wood" introduces many of the themes and issues which appear in Murakami's later works culminating specifically in "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle": alienation, the loner, mysterious women, the aimlessness of life, reality v. illusion, a society where the only certainty is uncertainty. There are even references to wells and winding up springs. And quite a lot of suicides.

If this review doesn't sound too coherent, well, it's that sort of book. You really need to read it for yourself to see where Murakami is coming from. Lots of questions asked, very few answers given. I'll cop out in the usual fashion; if you like this sort of thing, then it's the sort of thing you'll like. One thing is certain: it shows that Murakami isn't just a great Japanese writer, he's a great writer - period.