[Book watch] Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.
She showed me her room, isn’t it good, norwegian wood?
She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere,
So I looked around and I noticed there wasn’t a chair.
I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine.
We talked until two and then she said, "it’s time for bed".
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn’t and crawled off to sleep in the bath.
And when I awoke I was alone, this bird had flown.
So I lit a fire, isn’t it good, norwegian wood.

Norwegian Wood - Beatles

Haruki Murakami has taken the theme of this song and as only a true artist can, has produced a work of art that will rank alongside the best in postmodern 20th century lit. Unrequited love, death, poignancy, madness and surprisingly humour are the basis of this coming-of-age tale of Toru Watanabe. Toru is torn between Naoko, his first love and that also of his now dead friend Kizuki, who is maniacally depressive and Midori, a person who is trying to come out the shroud of death to find a life for herself. As Toru struggles between maintaining his fidelity to Naoko and at the same time grows closer to Midori, Murakami's unique prose allows the reader to place himself completely in the protagonist's shoes.

The books' major forte is clearly the character development. Every aspect of each of the major players in the 19th and 20th years of Toru's life is drawn out in the book. Toru's despondent loneliness, Naoko's silence, Midori's ache for love are truly felt by the reader. There is a certain lyrical quality in Murakami's writing which allows him to transition from one state to another with a grace that is truly amazing. The same quality also allows him to leave a lot unsaid, especially about the setting and ambience, only to be said by the way the narrative develops. "Norwegian Wood" can be compared to "Catcher in the Rye", both being tales of adolescence, insanity and death. In fact we can see Toru reading the book quite a few times in the novel.

I have not read much Japanese fiction(Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy being the only other work I have attempted). But Murakami presents to us a Japan of Sony and bullet trains which is more in line with our knowledge than Mishima who seems to be stuck in the Post-Meiji era. While Mishima's prose is as heavy as the a branch laden with cherry blossoms, which he so often describes, Murakami's is light and flighty. What is common to them is the grace of movement which I have to realise is probably a cornerstone of their culture. Books, movies, cartoons, music all seem to possess this trait.

My favourite parts of the story -

1. The opening part where Naoko and Toru are going through the meadows and how Toru realises 18 years later that the scene is slipping away from him second by second with age.

2. Midori and Toru sitting on top of her house watching a house fire and signing a folk song. Talk of dysfunctional humour!!!

3. Toru visiting Midori's father in the hospital and eating cucumbers with him. And all he remembers is that the old man made the same crunching sound as him.

4. Reiki telling Toru in a letter that it is possible to love more than one and by accepting Midori he was not really casting away Naoko.

@Amazon
@Barnes and Noble