Murakami’s prose is so impalpable and exquisite that everything he chooses to describe vibrates with symbolic potential: a shirt hung out to dry, paper cutouts, a butterfly-shaped paperweight.

– The Guardian

I’ll start by saying it was a painful book. Norwegian Wood contains extremely slow parts, alternated with small plot advances that helped me recover a minimal amount of interest. I had to read it in several sittings.

The Plot Link to heading

In short, the book narrates the emotional growth of Watanabe Toru, a nineteen-year-old in 1968 dealing with his first year of university, which serves as a backdrop for his countless romantic turmoils. His heart is divided between two girls: the first is Naoko, the former girlfriend of his deceased friend, with evident mental problems, and Midori, a sort of nymphomaniac with an intricate family background, who titillates his sexual impulses.

Thoughts on the Style Link to heading

Let me get this out of the way: I wasn’t thrilled. An extremely slow style, with long descriptions of settings — beautiful but ultimately cloying.

There are two aspects that particularly bothered me: the music and the alcohol.

Throughout the entire narrative arc, there are dozens of references to songs — songs I personally don’t know, that are outside my musical tastes, so I couldn’t catch any reference without doing research. Over time, I ended up skipping entirely the parts where I saw artists and songs listed. Similar situations were countless: as soon as anyone set foot in any venue with music, Murakami would launch into his dense list. I imagine that for someone, these references evoke some kind of atmosphere, but it just feels like a way to flex one’s musical culture.

Another cloying aspect concerns alcohol. It’s truly incredible how every ten pages or so, the author manages to insert the consumption of this or that alcoholic beverage, sometimes for no reason at all. Scenes like this are frequent: before eating, they poured themselves a glass of wine, then followed with a toast of rum, and once the meal was over, a small cup of sake. The characters drink at every hour of the day and for no apparent reason. I understand it gives a “tortured protagonist” vibe, but it really seems excessive.

I did, however, appreciate the many references to typical Japanese dishes.

SPOILER SECTION Link to heading

I’d like to examine some aspects of the plot — perhaps the ones that left me the most perplexed.

Naoko Link to heading

I’ll start with a positive note: Naoko is by far my favorite character. Her mental illness is portrayed with extreme mastery. Her death is truly a fitting conclusion — I wouldn’t have seen any hypothetical recovery as right. The final part of her illness is truly heartbreaking; what strikes most is her perspective on the world, on her only sexual encounter, and on how, in her small way, she lived her existence.

Nagasawa Link to heading

Another extremely interesting figure. He’s presented as a kind of superman — a model student with an iron will, perfect in every aspect. Somewhat atypically, he befriends Watanabe despite having very little in common.

What I didn’t appreciate at all is the ending reserved for him. At the end of the book, we learn that the protagonist reacted terribly to the suicide of Nagasawa’s ex-girlfriend, Hatsumi. He had left her to go work abroad, and it’s implied that she got into an unhappy marriage before taking her own life. Nagasawa writes a distraught letter to Watanabe sharing his grief, and in response, the latter cuts all ties, saying he cannot forgive him. I find the whole thing extremely unnatural — burning bridges with one of the few friends he had over a situation where objectively he wasn’t at fault just seems like an elegant way to write him out of the story.

Midori Link to heading

Midori enters the story when feelings for Naoko have already surfaced, unsettling the protagonist, who finds himself having to choose between the two. The character is essentially characterized by two aspects: the issue of her father to care for, and her unhealthy (presented as such) sexual transgressiveness. There are entire chapters dedicated to the fact that she wears an extremely short skirt or wants to go see porn at the cinema, not to mention that she asks Watanabe to masturbate thinking about her, making him uncomfortable. For the entire first part of the story, she dates the protagonist while having a boyfriend — which, for a book of that era, must have been the height of transgression.

Reiko Link to heading

Here we get into heavy territory. I frankly didn’t understand the origin of her mental problems. Her story is told in fragments: she is “raped” by a child to whom she teaches piano — a situation so grotesque as to be implausible, both the situation and the consequences. After the episode, she decides to ABANDON her own daughter and husband to retreat into the community and never return, not even after “recovery.” The feeling is that the author wanted to insert some kind of heavy trauma into her story, but in the end, it all comes across as too unrealistic.

I won’t go into detail about the sex with Watanabe while wearing the deceased Naoko’s clothes, because it seems not only in poor taste but also a completely senseless act, written for the sheer sake of inserting something shocking.

The Ending Link to heading

What I truly can’t forgive this book for (which many call a masterpiece) is the ending. Let’s put it this way: the entire book is focused on the protagonist’s difficulty in choosing between the two girls he loves. Naoko dies by suicide, and the protagonist, after processing his grief in a questionable manner (intergenerational sex), calls Midori and says:

I want to see you. I have a million things to tell you. Things I absolutely have to talk to you about. You are the only thing I want in the world. I want to see you and talk to you. I want to start everything from the beginning, just you and me.

So we’ve witnessed 374 pages of emotional turmoil only to discover that it was Naoko’s death that determined his choice, and now, as if nothing happened, he feels free to say that Midori is the only thing he wants in the world, now that nothing else remains in his life. What kind of emotional journey is this? What kind of moral does it carry?

In the final paragraph, the protagonist has a kind of epiphany, and to the question “where are you?” he realizes he doesn’t know, that he is extremely confused, as if emerging from a dream. WHY? Is the point that his love for Midori was always this clear and crystalline, and everything else was just smoke and mirrors? I hope not, but I don’t think I’ll ever get an answer.

Final Thoughts Link to heading

I admit I only made it to the end because it was a gift to me and holds high sentimental value. Maybe I expected something different, or maybe these kinds of stories full of emotional turmoil destined to lead nowhere just aren’t for me. I don’t think I’ll read any more Murakami, but I can understand why this book was so successful when it came out. Reading it with a modern eye, however, some themes of transgression from the past can seem almost ridiculous, eliciting little more than an embarrassed smile. In any case, it was nice to immerse myself in the Japanese atmosphere — it brought back many beautiful memories.