Norwegian Wood (1987) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 3 stars

“Entretenido”

• Rated 3 stars

“Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami
★★★

Looking back on his students years in the late 1960's the narrator Watanbe tells his readers about how his life was divided between his love for 2 flawed girls.

Set amidst student uprisings, the pursuit of casual sex and the peace movement this is a story about growing up and discovering yourself.

Having just read The Catcher in the Rye I can see several places where this has influenced the story and indeed Watanbe refers to it a couple of times.

Normally I love Murakami's writing but for me this was missing the magic I found in his other stories (The Wind up Bird Chronicles and Kafka on the Shore it was also a bit too heavy on the details of sex between the characters.
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• Rated 5 stars

“This book was a lot diffirent then I tought it would be. But in the end I really liked it. Murakami really knows how to make characters come to life.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Interesting book, but I found the main character difficult to relate to because he was so detached - maybe that's just what young men are like? Generalising I know.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Good. While I was reading it, right in the middle I thought this is too sad for me. But it was so good I kept right on reading. ”

• Rated 2 stars

“A little too much suicide for my taste. I love Murakami but I didn't like this one.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Having read only one other novel by Murakami, "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World," I expected "Norwegian Wood" to have many of the surreal elements that "Hardboiled Wonderland" did. It does not. "Norwegian Wood" is touchingly real, a nostalgic look back at the College years of its Narrator, Toru. Over those three or four years, the Narrator comes to realize that he loves first one, then another young woman, and gradually loses the alienation that characterized his first year or two in College. But Toru's realization that he loves Naoko, first, then Midori, nearer the end of the novel, both come through suffering and loss, and Toru grows up by having his emotional adolescence seared away through several suicides. I almost gave up on "Norwegian Wood" at about page 100, having found no characters who held me (and relatively action), but as Toru became more aware of his feelings, the novel grew much richer for me, and now I find myself extremely glad I stuck it out. As it ended, I found it powerfully affecting, leaving me devastated, but hopeful. I'd recommend it.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Unexpected ending. Interesting book, I felt like there were a few too many suicides for it to be believable and I have a hard time accepting the ending. Even in grief it seems unlikely.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Murakami never fails to illuminate the beauty in seemingly hopeless tragedy. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“Murakami's unique voice is evident everywhere here in the first person narration, yet this haunting novel about love lacks the overtly surreal elements that are notable in many of his other books that I have read. Watanabe (the narrator; the story is told as a midlife reflection on his youth) is an intriguing character who seems to embody the contradictions of his relationships in a way that resonates with me (and I assume many other readers), and is probably expressive of the complex ways with which we see ourselves in the past and in the present. What kind of person am I? At times he seems an eccentric, others an everyman. Sometimes intellectual, sometimes down-to-earth. He wanders through life buffeted by his and others emotions. The final ambiguous passage of the novel seems to sum up Watanabe's entire youth and maybe the entire course of his life. I really enjoyed the book.”