Norwegian Wood is the story of Toru Watanabe and his first two loves. Naoko and Midori have completely different personalities and are both damaged in their own ways. Naoko is a childhood friend of Toru who struggles far more with mental illness than he realizes and Midori is a hot mess of crazy who would drive anyone insane right along with her. (Amanja, 2023)
I honestly don’t know where to begin with this novel, I have so much to say about it yet nothing comes out. Whilst there are some things about it that I enjoyed, there was a lot more that I disliked comparatively. To start with the good: as someone who is also entering early adulthood, I found the novel to be largely relatable at least in terms of some of my emotions that come with change. The way Murakami portrays and explains these emotions makes them sound much more beautiful and graceful than they actually are. In general. the world Murakami creates is truly captivating, the atmosphere he creates sucks you right into his world. However in reality, this is really the only quality about his writing that actually led me to finish this book, I would’ve put it down a long time ago if it hadn’t been for how immersive I found his writing style to be.
Perhaps the aspect that I disliked the most about this book is probably that I have grown to despise how Murakami writes women. Having read “Kafka on the Shore” some years ago, I’ve come to recognize a pattern in his novels. Every female character Murakami writes feels as if she exists for the sole purpose of being a sexual interest for the protagonist of the book, they are not given any real personalities, likings, or ideals. Most of the women in this novel felt like cliche movie tropes, such as the “manic pixie dream girl” in Midori’s case. I think this leads most female characters to fall flat compared to the more thought-out male characters. It becomes obvious that they only exist as a plot device or sex object, this is also the largest critique of his writing that I have seen. Every woman in this novel is written by a man, to appeal to the male gaze. In my opinion, this makes Murakami’s female characters feel out-of-touch with the world as they don’t struggle with the same concepts that women actually face, all their struggles –such as Reiko’s sexual experience with the 13-year-old pupil– are written from the perspective of a man, just as a fantasy of what women are like, without having any actual experience or insight on what women may actually struggle with. I personally thought Midori's character would've been improved so much just by drawing attention to her struggling with her femininity due to her tomboy-ish appearance. Even by highlighting Midori's struggle to accept herself, she would've felt so much more like a real person rather than a manic pixie dream girl who exists to act as Toru's secondary love interest. I feel that if Murakami's female characters were more grounded in reality, the whole novel would've been more enjoyable. This sexist approach in Murakami's writing is not an attribute that belongs only to him though, I think novels such as Norwegian Wood generally highlight how sexist Japan is as a whole society.
However, in Norwegian Wood I found even the protagonist Toru to be a flat character. I could probably describe characters such as Nagasawa or Hatsumi, or even Midori better than I could describe Toru with words. Even though the whole story is told from his perspective, I’ve come to realize after finishing the novel I still don't know or understand much about him, I feel like to me he wasn't a character that was able to differentiate himself enough as a person. I cannot remember much of what he does that makes him stand out as a character, to me he was just another boring protagonist. Everything yet nothing revolves around him. People may attribute this to him "being a more complicated character who cannot be described by just a few words", but to me he’s just sort of there not doing much, leading all these female characters to somehow fall in love with him. Considering that the story is said to contain autobiographical elements, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire novel is just a fantasy of Murakami’s.
While I was reading some Reddit threads about the novel I came across someone saying “Murakami resolves every conflict with either sex or suicide”, and I think that line captures this novel perfectly. It feels as if Toru never has to make any hard decisions, everything is instantly solved by Toru engaging in sexual acts with someone or a character committing suicide, he’s not met with any conflict that requires him to make a decision out of his expectations. He is not forced to choose between Naoko or Midori, he’s only left with the latter option after Naoko’s suicide anyway. Of course, this is the most drastic example in the book however this pattern is followed throughout. By now I know that in most Japanese literature conflicts are not resolved like in Western literature, which arguably makes the story feel more real as oftentimes conflicts are not resolved between real people either. However, I think Norwegian Wood crossed a thin line that causes that realism. The only thing that really led to Toru's development as a person was arguably Naoko’s death, which he claims to have matured after, but even then we never witness in which ways he has matured, what we see shows us that he’s still the same old Toru as always.
The only character that goes against Toru’s ideals is Nagasawa, who I thought was one of the more interesting characters. Nagasawa, although a douche, feels like a real person, unlike a lot of the other characters. He has his own opinions and ideals that separate him from the rest, which leads me to be more interested in his line of thinking and where it originates from. However, we never really got to see much of that. Additionally, his relationship with Hatsumi is one I wish would’ve been explored further. Hatsumi in general was one of the characters that felt more real. Whilst she’s only present in a very few scenes I was encapsulated by her story and what could’ve come out of it. I believe that the reason why this was the case is largely because she’s one of the very few characters that Toru doesn’t get involved with sexually. Although there are a few lines that suggest he’s interested in her, nothing actually happens, which is admirable enough for a female character in a Murakami novel. Hatsumi unlike some of the other female characters had her own ideals, she knew what she wanted in life, which is conflicting considering her suicide, which I didn't quite understand why she did it.
I generally had a hard time understanding why almost every other character took their own life in this story, with no clear reason as to why. I know that a lot of the time these things just happen, and we may not know why, leading us to be met with confusion and considering that a lot of the book deals with themes such as grief, it makes sense. I also know that Murakami loves ambiguity and in general his stories are not met with a happily ever after, however, I think that this fate being often met by a lot of his characters becomes stale after a while. It reaches a point where you cannot even feel anything in regards to the situation, you shrug it off as being another life lost, at least that’s how I felt reading Norwegian Wood. Perhaps being emotionally numb to these scenarios is more tragic than the actual fate of someone taking their own life.
Although beautifully written, coming-of-age novel Norwegian Wood is not a book that I plan on reading again in the near future. To me, it felt lacking in so many areas, especially in terms of character creation, and didn’t explore more of what it could’ve explored. This book was recommended to me by people I look up to, so I was unfortunately met with disappointment after finishing it. Yet, I found myself captivated by this relatively easy read, and in reality I wished it lasted longer just because of how sucked up I was into Murakami's world. I still have a few of his books in my TBR list, which I hope will be more well-thought-out and less sexist than Norwegian Wood.
Amanja. (2023, July 12). Norwegian Wood - Murakami Book Review and Summary. Amanja Reads Too Much. https://amanjareads.com/norwegian-wood-novel-review-with-spoilers/