(ノルウェイの森)
Synopsis:
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 quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.
My Review:
I opted to listen to the audio book version as I wasn't sure what to expect and preferred to allow the narrator to add the right inflection and emotion into the words of Haruki Murakami. I did thoroughly enjoy the entire experience but feel compelled to advise future readers/listeners of this book that although the story is about mental illness (which has no cultural boundaries) there are a lot of aspects about this story that are deeply rooted in the cultural uniqueness of Eastern culture (specifically Japanese).
The story of Toru, Naoko and Kizuki as three carefree best friends at the end of their teen years and what happens when it is time to transition to young adulthood and leave childhood days behind. After the unexpected suicide of Kizuki, Naoko and Toru's lives become emotional and confusing, questioning everything about who they are, who they love, their loyalties and their own "joie-de-vivre". Toru handles his transition to Tokyo for college much better than Naoko who seems lost in her thoughts and fears. We find that Naoko has experienced a silent mental illness for most of her life and Toru finds himself making it his responsibility to have her overcome her debilitating and incarcerating fears.
We meet many characters that seem to teach different life lessons to Toru. Toru uses these encounters in order to find direction in life and to try to make sense of those things that are not immediately and obviously right or wrong to him. The book is a coming of age story with a bleak tone but with hints of optimism (specially towards the end and from the characters you least expect it from). At the beginning of the book, Toru is on a plane to Germany recounting these memorable days that began in 1968. There is a great deal of explicitly sexual content in the book, however it is not gratuitous in nature but I found it to really add to the complexity of the characters. The fact that the sex scenes were so explicit and the character's attitudes towards sex were so "free" was integral to the cultural uniqueness of the story and very significant to the "free love" mentality of the time (late 1960s).
The writing is beautiful. I can only imagine how good it would be to be read in its native Japanese. But, as I don't speak Japanese, I have to trust that the translator did it great justice. Great story even though it dealt with the very sad topic of mental illness. At times the characters frustrated me and made me feel exasperated but beautifully made up for by the fantastic dialog and relationships.
Toru could easily become one of my favorite characters in the many books I have read. He is the "every man's man" character - admirable, flawed, loving, learning, and spirited but hopeful.
