Book Review: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Rating: 3.5/5★

This novel follows Toru Watanabe, and begins with him on a plane journey to Germany where he hears the Beatles song 'Norwegian Wood' and he subsequently recounts his teenage years.

The novel itself reads like a whimsical dream sequence, placing itself firmly on the border between plausibility and impossibility. I couldn't help but draw parallels to Woolf, and the idea of a stream of consciousness form of writing. The book was recommended by one of my teachers, and so I didn't exactly know what to expect, but after reading it I can't lie, there was some degree of confusion.

There were a few pressing questions that I was left with after it ended but I also couldn't help but admire the patterns and the significance of certain things in the novel that carried on throughout.

The most prominent of these is the significance of the number 4. There are 4 suicides in total: Kizuki's suicide, Naoko's sisters suicide, Hatsumi's suicide and Naoko's suicide. The word '4' in Japanese is pronounced 'shi,' the word for death. Just before the end of the novel Reiko and Toru have sex 4 times. Too purge the deaths that had occurred throughout the novel? Whilst it may have no significance at all, it was interesting to note.

Pros: ✔

• The writing style - the idea of a stream of consciousness which I absolutely adore, you get diverted from the fact that the novel is all retrospective.
• How perfectly accurate the setting of the 1980's seems.
• The story doesn't allow for a slow-burn, as you are thrown straight into the two love triangles that exist.
• Everything in the book seems to hold a symbolic possibility, which is a nice change.
• The character of Storm Trooper, who seems to be one of the few that remains human.
• The character of Reiko and her oddly fascinating backstory. The perversion of events for Reiko's story is one of the most interesting in the book.
• The very brief character of Midori's father, despite the (seemingly false) stories Midori spun about him.
• The beautiful cover, with all of Murakami's books being a homage to the Japanese flag.
• The appropriately titled book: 'Norwegian Wood.' The song where inspiration was drawn from by the Beatles has an incredibly appropriate first line that sums up the whole novel in its entirety: 'I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.' 

Cons: ✘

• The relationship between Naoko and Toru. It doesn't seem to be the healthiest relationship, evident with Naoko's death and how Toru deals with this. 
• The relationship between Midori and Toru. This relationship seemed almost satirical in a sense, as well as being undeveloped in a romantic sense, with Midori acting like a caricature of how a person would act.
• The character of Toru. As a protagonist he irritated me to no end. I just find it amusing how he is portrayed to be an unattractive, slightly boring male yet manages to sleep with multiple girls with his trips with Nagasawa. The plausibility just begins to wear thin.
• The fact that Toru does not do anything that could prevent anyone's suicide. If he had stopped encouraging Nagasawa and his ways, the possibility of Hatsumi still being alive is incredibly prevalent. 
• The way Toru views and uses Naoko as almost a sex doll. Everything she does and speaks about, for him, is able to be linked back to sex in a slightly unnerving manner.
• The fact that the character of Storm Trooper disappears with no explanation, considering he was one of the few characters I liked.
• The sometimes unnecessary perverted themes.
• How Reiko and Toru have sex at the end. Considering the book is technically from a retrospective point of view, perhaps half the events are fake and it was just all a sexual fantasy. But Reiko and Toru having sex was incredibly unnecessary and did nothing to further the plot at all.

All in all, I'm glad I read the book. The themes that were dealt with were heavy and not shied away from It was a refreshing read, and whilst I'm still unsure about how exactly I feel about this book and Murakami as an author, I think it cannot be denied that the book itself was incredibly ahead of its time.