Skip to main content

Review of Norwegian wood by 'Haruki Murakami'

Genre: Tragic Romance, Psychological Fiction Published: 1987 Pages: 351 Tags: Death, Trauma, Bildungsroman Okay, I gave it a second chance, but I’m still skeptical. Although I enjoy reading emotional stories rooted in real-life suffering, I often struggled to grasp Murakami’s point in several places. Set in 1960s Tokyo, the story is narrated by Toru Watanabe, a 37-year-old man who is suddenly pulled into memories of his youth when he hears the Beatles' song “Norwegian Wood.” Watanabe is the kind of character who seems to attract — or be drawn toward — deeply troubled, emotionally complex people. Norwegian Wood explores a tale of love, loss, and the unsettling feeling of things left unfinished. The traumatic bond between Watanabe and Naoko, a fragile woman grieving the loss of her boyfriend Kizuki (Watanabe’s best friend), seems to be born from shared pain. Later, we’re introduced to Midori — vibrant, bold, and unpredictable. Watanabe finds himself torn between the tragic pull of h...
Post a Comment

Review of Norwegian wood by 'Haruki Murakami'



Genre: Tragic Romance, Psychological Fiction
Published: 1987
Pages: 351
Tags: Death, Trauma, Bildungsroman

Okay, I gave it a second chance, but I’m still skeptical. Although I enjoy reading emotional stories rooted in real-life suffering, I often struggled to grasp Murakami’s point in several places.

Set in 1960s Tokyo, the story is narrated by Toru Watanabe, a 37-year-old man who is suddenly pulled into memories of his youth when he hears the Beatles' song “Norwegian Wood.”

Watanabe is the kind of character who seems to attract — or be drawn toward — deeply troubled, emotionally complex people. Norwegian Wood explores a tale of love, loss, and the unsettling feeling of things left unfinished. The traumatic bond between Watanabe and Naoko, a fragile woman grieving the loss of her boyfriend Kizuki (Watanabe’s best friend), seems to be born from shared pain. Later, we’re introduced to Midori — vibrant, bold, and unpredictable. Watanabe finds himself torn between the tragic pull of his past with Naoko and the uncertain potential of a future with Midori.

While I appreciate the narrative being driven by young characters burdened with heavy emotions — which adds a raw, unfiltered tone to the novel — it was, at times, uncomfortably graphic in its portrayal of intimacy. Some of those scenes felt unnecessary and distracting.

Watanabe is portrayed as a quiet yet intellectually rich university student, but the women around him often feel like devices for emotional or physical stimulation, rather than fully developed characters in their own right.

Murakami touches on mental illness, lingering grief, the ache of memory, and the search for meaning in life. I did appreciate the references to music throughout — they added a soft, nostalgic mood to the story. Despite dealing with heavy topics like self-harm and emotional trauma, the book maintains a strangely calm and moody tone which i must agree adds to the haunting.

If you're someone who enjoys exploring different emotional landscapes or are open to unconventional storytelling, I’d recommend giving Norwegian Wood a try — even if only once.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "The Mistress of Spices" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Genre: Fantasy, Romance Published: 1997 Pages: 317 Tags: Fiction, magic realism At some point in our lives, we all have wished to be a part of magic, an escape from the never ending troubles of our lives; I know i have. "The Mistress of spices" is one such story, a girl born with mystical powers in a small village. The powers she was so proud of, later turned out to be a curse losing everything she once took for granted.  when in search of vengeance, she who has been given several names discovered a path to help herself while serving the people. The stories she heard sailed her across the ocean to a distant island where she found the "Old one," as they call her. The old one trains the sisters to become mistresses who later go on helping people through the spices magic. Divakaruni carefully depicts the struggles faced by the immigrants in an unknown land far away from the warmth of their home country. Throughout the novel, the author expresses gratitude towards the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review on "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

Genre: Historical Fiction, War Crime Published: 2007 Pages: 433 Tags: Fiction The story travels through 1960 to the early 2000s in Afghanistan, during which the country was under several wars, beginning with the Soviet invasion to Taliban rule. The narrative follows two women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives intertwine through a common mishap. Mariam is an illegitimate child born in Herat to a wealthy businessman, Jalil, and his maid Nana. By the time Mariam realized that her father's affection came with rules and limits, she had lost her mother. Mariam was just fifteen years old when she was married to Rasheed, a conservative and dominating widower who believed his ideal wife should be submissive and dutiful. All it took was a miscarriage, and the abuse against Mariam began.  Down the streets of Kabul, Laila grew up in a progressive household where her father believed education should be her top priority while everything else could wait. Her baba, Hakim, sowed the seed, encouragin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review on Before the Coffee Gets Cold By Toshikazu Kawaguchi

  Genre: Time Travel Fiction Published: 2015 Pages: 232 Tags: Fiction Imagine yourself seated in a cozy cafe, with window view to your side and there's rain pouring outside, you are sipping your coffee, reading your book while listening to the soothing sounds of downpour. That is how I felt while reading "Before the Coffee Gets Cold". Funiculi Funicula is a small cafe placed in the back alley of Tokyo, run by Nagare along with his wife Kei and his cousin Kazu. while from the outside its a normal cafe serving freshly brewed coffee to its customers, it also possesses a unusual chair that can grant you a wish to travel across the divisions of time. Many have heard the urban legend, but only a handful of the customers have sat in that chair, thanks to the tedious list of rules. Naturally, the cost of bending the laws of nature comes with a heavy price: if one fails to consume the coffee before it cools, they will be stuck as a ghost forever barred from returning to either...
Post a Comment
Read more