Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood (1987)
by Haruki Murakami

This is an absolutely beautiful book. A coming-of-age story set in late-1960s Tokyo, Norwegian Wood is sad, sweet and really well written - in parts, it reads almost like poetry.

Norwegian Wood starts on a plane, where 37-year-old Toru Watanabe hears part of a song (the Beatles' Norwegian Wood, of course) and is reminded of his time as a student decades earlier - a time that he fears he may not be remembering correctly: "What if I've forgotten the most important thing?What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning to mud?". In the late 60s, Toru was a new student in Tokyo, doing all of the things students do - drinking, partying, living in a filthy all-male dorm, arguing about politics, even attending a few classes - but he remains apart from his fellow students, always deep in thought and a little aloof. Toru is a wee bit traumatised, as it turns out, by the recent suicide of his best friend Kizuki. Equally affected by the death is Kizuki's girlfriend Naoko; she bumps into Toru one day and the two begin an unusual relationship, walking the streets of Tokyo together in silence every Sunday. Naoko is beautiful but damaged, with psychological issues that eventually lead her to leave the city for a sanitarium in the mountains. Back in Tokyo, Toru is charmed by a vivacious, quick-witted and mini-skirted classmate called Midori while Naoko's mental health continues to deteriorate.



Toru and Naoko in the 2010 movie adaptation

Norwegian Wood is about love and loss, but it's not your usual love story - Toru loves both girls in different ways, but it's not like the love triangles you often find in novels or movies. There's no real competition between Naoko and Midori for Toru's affections and the story isn't about Toru choosing one over the other; it's more complex and than that and so the relationships come across as more believable.
The characters in Norwegian Wood are quirky and unique, with complicated and often painful back stories. At the heart of it all is Toru, a thoughtful and unemotional observer who only ever wants to do the right thing but often finds himself out of his depth. With his cool, disengaged manner, Toru shouldn't be particularly likeable but he really his - he always means well, and you just want things to turn out better for him.

Norwegian Wood was first released in Japan in 1987, where it quickly became an enormous hit, selling millions of copies and making Haruki Murakami a household name. Full disclosure: I can't read Japanese, so the version I read was translated into English by Jay Rubin. I'm guessing that Jay Rubin is a pretty good translator, as the writing in Norwegian Wood (even after it's been translated into another language) is dazzling. Murakami (and Rubin too, I assume) can put words together in a way that's unique and breath-taking: he describes Naoko crying "with the force of a person vomiting on all fours". He recalls the stunning countryside outside the sanatorium: "Washed clean of a summer's dust by days of gentle rain, the mountains wore a deep, brilliant green. The October breeze set white fronds of head-high grasses swaying. One long streak of cloud hung pasted across a dome of frozen blue." He writes honestly about grief and loss "No truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning". It's like chapter after chapter of fantastic poetry.
Adding to the poetic feel of the book is its structure - there's no clear beginning/middle/end and no particular resolution to the story; we just follow Toru through his memories of a particularly eventful time in his life and feel the same sad nostalgia that Toru himself feels when he hears that song on a plane and remembers how things used to be. It's unique and it's really quite lovely.

I had been intending to read Norwegian Wood for years - I just wish I'd gotten around to it sooner. It is a modern classic and should absolutely be on your must-read list.

9/10