| Author: |
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Haruki Murakami
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| Title: |
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Norwegian Wood |
| Moochable copies: |
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No copies available |
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| Recommended: |
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| Topics: |
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| Published in: |
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English |
| Binding: |
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Paperback |
| Pages: |
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298 |
| Date: |
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2000-09-12 |
| ISBN: |
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0375704027 |
| Publisher: |
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Vintage |
| Weight: |
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0.49 pounds |
| Size: |
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0.66 x 5.16 x 7.94 inches |
| Edition: |
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Translated from Japanese |
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| Description: |
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Product Description
First American Publication
This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4 million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.
Amazon.com Review
In 1987, when Norwegian Wood was first published in Japan, it promptly sold more than 4 million copies and transformed Haruki Murakami into a pop-culture icon. The horrified author fled his native land for Europe and the United States, returning only in 1995, by which time the celebrity spotlight had found some fresher targets. And now he's finally authorized a translation for the English-speaking audience, turning to the estimable Jay Rubin, who did a fine job with his big-canvas production The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Readers of Murakami's later work will discover an affecting if atypical novel, and while the author himself has denied the book's autobiographical import--"If I had simply written the literal truth of my own life, the novel would have been no more than fifteen pages long"--it's hard not to read as at least a partial portrait of the artist as a young man.
Norwegian Wood is a simple coming-of-age tale, primarily set in 1969-70, when the author was attending university. The political upheavals and student strikes of the period form the novel's backdrop. But the focus here is the young Watanabe's love affairs, and the pain and pleasure and attendant losses of growing up. The collapse of a romance (and this is one among many!) leaves him in a metaphysical shambles: I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it. This account of a young man's sentimental education sometimes reads like a cross between Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Stephen Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women. It is less complex and perhaps ultimately less satisfying than Murakami's other, more allegorical work. Still, Norwegian Wood captures the huge expectation of youth--and of this particular time in history--for the future and for the place of love in it. It is also a work saturated with sadness, an emotion that can sometimes cripple a novel but which here merely underscores its youthful poignancy. --Mark Thwaite
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| Reviews: |
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Joyce Fischer (USA: IL) (2010/09/26):
A wonderful book by Haruki Murakami. Less fantasy and more straight fiction than his earlier work. Two young college students are bound together by one loss, the suicide of their closest friend. Murakami explores not only is issue of suicide, but mental health and the culture of isolation in Japan. There is a sense of deep sorrow, a kind of emptiness, which pervades the book. I think it is a feeling that you must strive to understand in order to empathize with the characters. Murakami fans often feel a deep connection with the characters. Others are unable to bridge the psychological gap and these readers tend to react with anger toward what they see as weakness in the characters. If you enjoy an introspective read, this is for you. Murakami always leaves his reader wondering about the depths of the human psyche.
Tani (USA: CA) (2012/04/16):
I read it because a book group I belonged to decided to take it up, but I detested it. It left me feeling empty and uncomfortable. The author has what I consider an unnecessarily unsavory and unpleasant way of looking at and writing about his subject matter, and I intend never to read anything by him again. Disliking an individual book is one thing, but coming to dislike an author because of what a book tells you about his/her imagination is another, and this book falls into the latter category for me. Ick! FWIW: I have liked plenty of books whose characters were not "lovable;" that is not my problem with this book.
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| URL: |
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http://bookmooch.com/0375704027 |
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