My Journey to Become Pretentiously Literate

"Norwegian Wood" is a curious book. The story follows an unconventionally stable plotline, with few twists, turns, rises, falls, or denouements. This book is a journey, a linear insight into the life and growth of our melancholic main character, Toru Watanabe. Some readers will tell you that this book has no plot; if you hype yourself up for a conventional read, you may find yourself thinking the same thing. "Norwegian Wood" focuses not on plot or setting or even characterization, but on emotion.

There were things that I liked and disliked about this book, and the distinction between the two parallels a shift in the story between two arcs. The first arc centers around Watanabe's relationship with Naoko, the former girlfriend of his dead childhood friend, Kizuki. Murakami puts a great deal of emphasis on depression and mental illness all throughout the book, and in particular, in this first half. We see Naoko struggle very openly with Kizuki's death, while Watanabe internalizes his feelings and fails to realize how much the loss has changed him. My favorite aspect of the book was this focus on depression and loss, particularly in Watanabe; though he doesn't realize it, he struggles just as much as Naoko does, though in vastly different ways.

Midway through the book, the story shifts the spotlight onto Midori, an outgoing and eccentric student in Watanabe's theater class. This is where the book takes a strange and repetitive turn. Many of Watanabe's interactions with Midori don't make complete sense - possibly due to a cultural gap between reader and book - and are oddly, explicitly sexual. Watanabe struggles in "choosing" between Midori and Naoko for the rest of the book, a plot point which was drawn out for far too long and became boring quickly. The theme of mental illness continues, though, as readers come to realize that even Midori has a tragic background.

To expand on what I said earlier, there are some things about this book that don't translate well at all. There are several uncomfortable and seemingly unnecessary sex scenes in the book (including a 13-year-old girl seducing a middle-aged housewife) which are written in painful anatomically correct prose, like reading out of a medical journal. Some of the cultural norms of Japan in the 60's are hard to understand as well, but interesting nonetheless.

All in all, this book alternated between enjoyable, weird, and heartbreaking. "Norwegian Wood" is somewhat ruthless to its characters, so don't expect a happy ending. If you're interested in a slow, emotionally-driven journey, give this book a shot.