Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1784 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-17
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me" "Norwegian Wood" (Lennon/McCartney).

With Norwegian Wood Murakami, best known as the author of off-kilter classics such as the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland, finally achieved widespread acclaim in his native Japan. The novel sold upwards of 4 million copies and forced the author to retreat to Europe, fearful of the expectations accompanying his new-found cult status.

The novel is atypical for Murakami: seemingly autobiographical, in the tradition of many Japanese "I" novels, Norwegian Wood is a simple coming of age tale set, primarily, in 1969/70, the time of Murakami's own university years. The political upheavals and student strikes of the period form the backdrop of the novel but the focus here is the young Watanabe's love affairs and the pain (and pleasure) of growing up with all its attendant losses, (self-)obsessions and crises.

The novel is split into two volumes and beautifully presented here in a "gold" box containing both the green book and the red book. Young Japanese fans became so obsessed with the work that they would dress entirely in one or other colour denoting which volume they most identified with. And the novel is hugely affecting, reading like a cross between Plath's Bell Jar and Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women, if less complex and ultimately less satisfying than Murakami's other, more allegorical, work. He captures the huge expectation of youth, and of this particular time in history, for the future and for the place of love in it. He also saturates the work with sadness, an emotion that can cripple a novel but which here underscores the poignancy of the work's rather thin subject matter. --Mark Thwaite

Synopsis
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

From the Publisher
One of the nine titles in the Vintage East promotion

Customer Reviews

This Place that isn't a Place
'Haunting' doesn't quite do justice to this book by way of description, but it is truly brilliant. Following the life of Toru Watanabe as he struggles with the concepts of life and death, the deterioration in mental health of his dead best friend's girlfriend and the impulsive behaviour of his friend Midori, along with the usual trials and tribulations of the ages 18-20.

This book kept me up at night, I read it almost non-stop on the train and completed it in the small hours before my father's wedding, that was an entire month ago and still, when I'm sitting somewhere alone or walking from college to my house, thoughts of it sneak up and press their hands over my eyes softly saying 'guess who'.

A part of this book was actually a short story that ended up part of the collection entitled 'Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman' which was actually the first example of Murakami's work I ever read, and the second I read that section of this book my heart skipped a beat and I thought 'Oh God, here it comes'.

Murakami is one of those very special writers who grab a fistful of your inards and hang on tight long after you finish the book, he's one of the most prfound authors I've ever had the good fortune to read.

A Phantasmagoria
Beautiful, dreamlike, sad, flowing, entralling, touching, honest. A story to drift along with. You can take as little or as much meaning from this novel as you like. Questions the fine line between sanity and insanity. As with all of murakami's novels, i feel that the journey is more important than the whole. The prose is simple and effotless. Murakmi is surely one of the greatest modern writers.

His finest accomplishment!
Among his many fine novels, "Norwegian Wood" is in my opinion Haruki Murakamis finest accomplishment and the most treasured book in my collection. I would also like to recomend "After the Quake".