Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood, a love story written by Haruki Murakami, is the second book the Brannan/Bluxome book club tackled. I had somewhat heard of 1Q84 before, so I somehow developed high expectations for Murakami heading into this novel.

Norwegian Wood is a a simply-written tale, with historical and cultural underpinnings, that does a decent job in drawing one in emotionally, despite many boring passages. It felt a bit like a Japanese Catcher in the Rye, in that we deal with a troubled young protaganist struggling to live a “normal” life. Norwegian Wood, however, is a bit more dark, as one of its central themes is death. Watanabe, the protagonist, must face not only the suicide of his best friend but also the tortured-soul aftermath enveloping his best friend’s girlfriend Naoko, whom he himself falls in love with. While the world around him begins to rumble with change, Watanabe stays in isolation, interacting only with a few individuals, as well as in obsession, over the far-off, damaged Naoko.

The storyline was captivating, if not a little vanilla. However, the writing style I found absolutely boring, at least compared to the other novel I paused to read this. Sentence structures are very simple (it feels zen! Japanese). I ached for some complexity, but it read in short, simple, understated pieces all the way through. One can easily empathize with the plot though. We all love reading about hopeless love. We root for Watanabe, yet we also secretly hope the happy ending does not arrive, for the story is twinged with too much sadness. Watanabe’s oddness adds a bit of excitement to what otherwise would have been a standard love story.

Overall, though the story did not feel to original and the writing style was a bit too simplistic for my tastes, the tale had enough oddities and heart-pulls to be enjoyable.