Book - Norwegian Wood

[elusivek]

Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami
Amazon.com product link

From Publishers Weekly
In a complete stylistic departure from his mysterious and surreal novels (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; A Wild Sheep Chase) that show the influences of Salinger, Fitzgerald and Tom Robbins, Murakami tells a bittersweet coming-of-age story, reminiscent of J.R. Salamanca's classic 1964 novel, LilithAthe tale of a young man's involvement with a schizophrenic girl. A successful, 37-year-old businessman, Toru Watanabe, hears a version of the Beatles' Norwegian Wood, and the music transports him back 18 years to his college days. His best friend, Kizuki, inexplicably commits suicide, after which Toru becomes first enamored, then involved with Kizuki's girlfriend, Naoko. But Naoko is a very troubled young woman; her brilliant older sister has also committed suicide, and though sweet and desperate for happiness, she often becomes untethered. She eventually enters a convalescent home for disturbed people, and when Toru visits her, he meets her roommate, an older musician named Reiko, who's had a long history of mental instability. The three become fast friends. Toru makes a commitment to Naoko, but back at college he encounters Midori, a vibrant, outgoing young woman. As he falls in love with her, Toru realizes he cannot continue his relationship with Naoko, whose sanity is fast deteriorating. Though the solution to his problem comes too easily, Murakami tells a subtle, charming, profound and very sexy story of young love bound for tragedy. Published in Japan in 1987, this novel proved a wild success there, selling four million copies. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

+ = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + =

My personal comments under a cut... possible spoilers (at least I think so)

I know, Haruki Murakami, great author and all, lots of fans and whatnot, but this book just didn't do it for me.

It seems that... there is no plot, there is seemingly no climax (I'm still trying to think which of those incidents is supposed to be the climax) and the ending is just as baffling. I don't get it. At. All.

I guess it somehow reads more like a diary or a journal. We start with this current Toru Watanabe thinking about his past... but usually, with this kind of setting, wouldn't the ending of the book be a wrap up of this "thoughts of the past" and then zoom back to the current character and I dunno, say some sort of conclusion?

The way the book ended felt like it was just cut off. For some people, it may seem that it's very good, and great and that it ended with the right mysterious flavour, but for me, I still have the beginning of the book, clearly in my mind, so, I keep asking, "so what's this got to do with the beginning of the book?"

It's just this Toru going through his late adolescent life, his friends die, blah blah, he's stuck, he's lost, sleeps around, meets a new friend, nice girl and all, starts to like her, stops sleeping around, then sleeps with a woman 19years his senior 4 times in a night.

I'm not really discriminating about the age. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but if he already liked a girl enough to ask her to "wait for him" then I think it's just common courtesy to not sleep with anyone else. Or maybe something's wrong with me, I have no idea.

Once again, this is one of those books that it was enjoyable while I'm reading it, but when I reach the end, the ending just... is either inconclusive, doesn't wrap things up, no closure... or just simply doesn't make sense, whatsoever with regards with how the story started. Sorry.