'Norwegian Wood' by Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami: 4/5
(Spoiler Free)
Norwegian Wood is about Toru Watanabe who hears the song "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles and is suddenly transported back to the 1960s when he was a university student and in love with a girl named Naoko. The novel centers around their relationship and how Watanabe is forced to choose between first love Naoko and the new exciting rebellious Midori, who quite literally marches into his life. Haruki Murakami is a brilliant writer and perfectly captures an honest depiction of love in a way that is not cheesy or overly romantic. He shows us that love is not always suddenly looking at everything with rose-tinted glasses, and he brutally demonstrates the agony that love can sometimes cause. The character of Toru Watanabe is easily one of my most favorite literary characters purely for the fact that, even though we see the stories through his eyes, we do not really know much about him—just like the other characters in the novel. This creates a paradoxical feeling of being inside Toru’s head but also watching him from the outside like a friend accompanying him on his journey of adolescence. Naoko, Reiko, and Midori are incredibly fleshed out and interesting characters with heartbreaking backgrounds that drive the plot forward. I thought, however, that the characters Nagawasa and Hatsumi could have had a little more light shed on their relationship—especially Hatsumi could have had more scenes so that her plot points meant more to the story. The story is one filled with heartbreak, humor, and philosophy. It easily became one of my favorite books a few chapters in, and I genuinely put off reading it a few times just because I did not want it to end so soon. This is my first Murakami book, and I will definitely be re-visiting his works again.