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Norwegian Wood

By Haruki Murakami

(519)

| Paperback | 9781860468186

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Book Description

First American Publication

This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4 million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.

Toru, a quiContinue

Critics

Norwegian Wood

La trama e la recensione di Norwegian Wood, romanzo di Haruki Murakami edito da Einaudi. Uno dei più clamorosi successi letterari giapponesi di tutti i tempi è anche il libro più intimo, introspettivo di Murakami, che qui si stacca dalle atmosfere on ... (read full critics)

Qlibri published on Tue, 23 Nov 2010

Norwegian Wood

Vintage, 293 pp., $13 (paper) When several of Toru Watanabe's friends commit suicide, he feels as is their ghosts are haunting him and pulling his spirits down. He struggles to live beyond the grasp of death by retreating to nature and connecting to ... (read full critics)

austinchronicle published on Sun, 5 Sep 2010

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20 Reviews

4 people find this helpful

There was something strange about Naoko's becoming twenty. I felt as if the only thing that made sense, whether for Naoko or for me, was to keep going back and forth between eighteen and nineteen. After eighteen would come nineteen, and after nineteen, eighteen. Of course. But she turned twenty. ... (continue)

There was something strange about Naoko's becoming twenty. I felt as if the only thing that made sense, whether for Naoko or for me, was to keep going back and forth between eighteen and nineteen. After eighteen would come nineteen, and after nineteen, eighteen. Of course. But she turned twenty. And in the fall, I would do the same.
Only the dead stay seventeen forever.
My first Murakami ever.
A love ballad about shadow (Naoko), light (Midori) and a young boy becoming a man.

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Rosalie said on Dec 21, 2008 | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

I was really drawn into these characters lives, but I didn't like them. They felt a little unreal to me, just too moody and needy. While I was reading, I kept thinking "are people really like this?" So on that level, the book didn't work for me. The women struck me as exaggerations, Midori especiall ... (continue)

I was really drawn into these characters lives, but I didn't like them. They felt a little unreal to me, just too moody and needy. While I was reading, I kept thinking "are people really like this?" So on that level, the book didn't work for me. The women struck me as exaggerations, Midori especially. All of them either killed themselves or wanted to kill themselves. It honestly bothered me how females were portrayed. As for Watanabe, he got to live out his sexual fantasies with all of these fragile women and that seemed like wish fulfillment to me. At times I really felt for his character-- how he kept losing everyone he loved, how the girls he cared about would yank him around. But after a while I just grew numb to him. He was just too concerned with his own gratification.
There's also some problems with the beginning of the story when he is warning the readers how much he lost. And he did lose two people very close to him, but I was expecting more tragedy. The ending bothered me because we really don't know what happened. Does he end up with her? How long did it last? Because he's alone on the airplane and he's alone when he's recalling the memories. The love story between Watanabe and Midori isn't complete without the answers to these questions.
There were parts of this book I really liked-- the vivid and beautiful descriptions, the psychological studies, the use of music to portray emotions, and the tender way death and loss was handled. I actually think the sex scenes took away from the book, but maybe that was intentional on Murakami's part. Maybe he didn't want it to be too sentimental. That would make sense as to why the raw physical side of life was alongside the spiritual. I don't agree with some of the decisions Murakami made, but it was an intense reading experience. He certainly knows how to write.

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Moirne Stark said on Dec 7, 2010 | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

You were so nice to me when I was having my problems, but now that you're having yours, it seems there's not a thing I can do for you. You're all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.
"If you ... (continue)

You were so nice to me when I was having my problems, but now that you're having yours, it seems there's not a thing I can do for you. You're all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
"There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one strange woman after another. It just tires you out and makes you disgusted with yourself."
"Only the dead stay seventeen forever."
"Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action."
"A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do but what he should do."
"Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. I'm going to give it hundred percent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what I don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and it things go bad, I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit."
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
"Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that."
"Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time."
"Letters are just pieces of paper. ... Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay, keep them, and what vanishes will vanish."
"But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives."

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Milena said on Jul 28, 2010 | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

In a perfect world, things go as they ought to and we don't get burdened by ghosts from the past. But this world's not perfect: things take normally care of themeselves as they will and there are plenty of ghosts from the past always tampering with our present lives. We just have to learn how to sha ... (continue)

In a perfect world, things go as they ought to and we don't get burdened by ghosts from the past. But this world's not perfect: things take normally care of themeselves as they will and there are plenty of ghosts from the past always tampering with our present lives. We just have to learn how to share our daily lives with them, or live regardless of them.
Norwegian Wood is a story full of ghosts, telling about people coping with them in different ways. Are there "wrong" or "right" ways to do that? It appears not: there are just "ways".
Norwegian Wood is about memories, feelings, the attempt - desperate and useless at times - to find a true life and a true love.

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Chiara L'Onironauta said on Aug 29, 2011 | 2 feedbacks

MESMERIZING

Excellent book, but different from western literature and I cannot say exactly why. Is it because the characters show little passion? because of the frank, unexciting sex descriptions? Because of the double-spaced text lay out, or because it reminds me of Sartre and the period of depression I was ... (continue)

Excellent book, but different from western literature and I cannot say exactly why. Is it because the characters show little passion? because of the frank, unexciting sex descriptions? Because of the double-spaced text lay out, or because it reminds me of Sartre and the period of depression I was going through when reading it? Nevertheless the book stays with you long after the last page is read.

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Ignominia said on Jun 12, 2011 | Add your feedback

It is the hint of sadness and unfulfillment throughout the book that captures my heart

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Christine Chow Knowles said on Feb 6, 2011 | Add your feedback