Review: Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Norwegian Wood is a remarkable novel that deals with life, death and isolation. Many people think Toru is a bland character but for me, he is just a lonely teenager who is thrust upon the life of adulthood. He isn't emotionally ready and may never be. This book is his journey to accept grief and live his life.

"How many sundays- how many hundreds of Sundays like this - lay ahead of me? Quite, peaceful and lonely," I said aloud to myself. On Sundays, I didn't wind my spring"

Toru is terribly lonely. The people around him are very different and often he is only stuck by himself. Sometimes we are just all alone. The ending baffled me. But I think Toru tried to cut his association with death and move on and lead a happy life but he is stuck. For me, this book shows what Toru has become as an adult man in his life. In the beginning, we see him alone, reminiscing his past and at the end of the novel, it's explained why he is like this.

Midori is the light of his life, a metaphor what his life can be and Naoko is the darkness of his life, which symbolizes death and isolation. Even though he tried to move on from Naoko's death and tried to accept Midori but he is unable to. He is unable to abandon the darkness from his life neither he is able to accept life. Moreover, he is dead inside, caught between life, death, loneliness, distress, and hope.

We know Japan is a very technologically advanced and successful nation but Japan is also a depressed and lonely nation. For me, this book is also a tiny glimpse of Japan's past. Moreover, It's not a love story, it's a book about Life and Death.

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