Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, if described in concrete terms of characters and setting, seems rather uninteresting. A coming-of-age story set in Japan during the late 1960s, from the perspective of a university student navigating love, loss, and a chaotic social landscape. The novel’s protagonist, Toru Watanabe, finds himself torn between two seemingly opposite women after travelling to university. Naoko, the girlfriend of Toru’s deceased best friend Kizuki, is fragile and haunted by her boyfriend’s sudden suicide, retreating into herself as she struggles with severe depression. Meanwhile, Toru meets Midori, the complete opposite of Naoko. Witty and colourful, she FINISH. Though told entirely through the memory and thoughts of Toru, Murakami avoids any sense of self-absorption in the narrative. Toru’s character emerges throughout the novel as a strikingly passive protagonist. He is neither confident, ambitious, nor sure of his place in the world, though he is not bothered by his middling and somewhat secluded social standing. Though Murakami wields these characteristics as Toru’s strength, he uses his emotional neutrality to make for an ideal observer of the struggles and complexities of those around him.
Murakami notably excels at developing supporting characters throughout the story – Naoko, Midori, Reiko, and Nagasawa all feel like fully realised individuals, each with their own interests and outlooks on their lives, rather than plot devices. At a more profound level, Murakami masterfully contrasts the two main love interests of Toru: Midori and Naoko, and the feel of the part of the book that focuses on either one of them is distinct. When Toru is around Naoko after Kizuki’s death, the narrative becomes contemplative and melancholic, steeped in memory and loss, with long silences and careful observations of her subtle movements and fragile mental state. Whereas, when Midori is the focus of Toru’s attention, the story pulses with energy and humor, with her irreverent storytelling and spontaneous nature, injecting vitality into scenes that might otherwise feel overly heavy with introspection.
This contrast reflects a deliberate narrative technique: though Toru constantly interacts with various characters throughout the story, his focus usually does not waver between multiple people at once – save for one crucial moment of decision in the final pages.
Photo: SFGATE
The novel’s central themes: sexuality, suicide, and the weight of memory, are all handled delicately by Murakami throughout the book. Struggles are not sensationalised, though the novel certainly doesn’t provide constant comfort. Some characters – namely Nagasawa and Reiko do little to befriend their characters with the reader at times. However, both characters reveal themselves to be flawed in authentically human ways, with Nagasawa’s callousness toward women and Reiko’s troubled past feeling like genuine character complexities rather than artificial narrative devices.
There’s an incredible charm in Murakami’s evocation of student life in Japan in the late 60’s. Student protests, national political tension, and changing sexual attitudes all give a backdrop to Toru’s story. Communicated through Toru’s strong appreciation for literature and music, there are constant references to works of art throughout the novel, notably Toru mentions early on that his favourite book is F. Scott. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and there are certainly striking similarities between Fitzgerald’s work and Murakami’s. Both employ romantic, melancholic
tones through the lens of an ordinary male protagonist, observing more individuals, more dynamic than themselves, around them.
Equally compelling to the imagery of Norwegian Wood is the prose style of Murakami’s; perhaps a consequence of Japanese literary technique, there is a dreamy air about the story, with dialogue that frequently shifts between directed, quoted conversations to a recalled memory of events, free from quotation marks, producing a lucid boundary between the present and past.
Norwegian Wood serves as a book for all, and may particularly resonate with students, navigating new relationships while moving towards a thoroughly uncertain adulthood. Through Toru’s recalled accounts of university life, Murakami expertly captures the many struggles of young people and how they perceive and understand themselves and those around them. The novel certainly provides no clear answers on the issues of love or loss, but instead suggests that just the act of progression – moving forward throughout life, and cherishing the relationships that you have at any point in time, is often the best act one can take.