“I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?” - Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami details the young life of Toru Watanabe, an unpassionate college student studying drama and lives a simple and mostly harmonic life of reading books, working, and listening to music. The story centers around Toru’s life as he tries to understand Naoko, a girl who he is in love with but who struggles to live normally, and Midori, a girl full of energy and life. As Toru walks between two vastly different worlds, one consisting of life and one consisting of death.
I had wanted to read Haruki Murakami’s work for a very long time (almost two years), especially as my dad had recommended it to me and RM (from BTS) truly loved the book. On quite a random day, I encountered Norwegian Wood in my school library and immediately checked it out. From this point in time, the only full length novel I had read by a Japanese author was Kazuo Ishiguro; thus, I was extremely curious and picked up the book.
After reading through the book in a span of two days, I finished the book with a sense that the story had washed over me and buried me in it. Reading Murakami’s work, I was surprised about how calm and mundane his writing was, not bringing out my emotional extremes, the way watching a fireplace brings a sense of warmth and stability. The scenes of Toru drinking beer, reading a book during class, or going on hikes seems mostly ordinary and nothing out of the blue.
However, the emotional aspect of Toru walking between a soul that was slowly dying and one that was full of life was the sharp contrast that struck me most in the novel. Naoko represents Toru’s past and the death shrouded in it, as she encapsulates the lost spirit of Toru’s best friend and Naoko’s boyfriend Kizuki. Through most of the novel, Toru seems to have a missing part of him after his friend’s death: never returning to the hometown that he lived most of his life, choosing a major because he has no passion, and only interacting with Naoko from his memories before college. Yet, as Naoko slowly loses herself in loss and death, Toru does his best to save a slowly disappearing soul, only to let her go in the end. At the same time Toru is in love with Naoko, he begins to meet Midori, the one who represents life and a new journey forward from his past. Toru meets lively and energetic Midori in a college classroom (away from his tragic hometown) and goes on various journeys of normality (drinking, smoking, eating together). And after Naoko passes, it is Midori that he leans on at the end of the novel. Although Midori seems superficial compared to the more withdrawn Naoko, it is Midori who becomes Toru’s net from falling into the spirit of death but brings him to a new start—a world filled with life.
Overall, I truly enjoyed Norwegian Wood and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a sad but touching read. I wish I did understand more of Japanese history and the student protests that were happening in the 1960's for context, but apart from that, it was still a digestible read.
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