re:mote voices: literature

Title: Norwegian Wood
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

This version of Murakami's Norwegian Wood finishes off with a couple of pages from the translator. These fill in some of the details surrounding this work. Murakami had written several books and achieved a certain level of success with his quirky ideas and fluid narratives. However with Norwegian Wood he suddenly found that he had a real hit on his hands and from there he has become one of the most popular Japanese writers in the world - a result which seems to have taken him by surprise. But would certainly explain why of all his novels Norwegian Wood is in fact the most readily available, this copy having been picked up in the local branch of a chain newsagent/stationery/bookshop thingmabub which of all Murakami's novels only had this one (as did another branch which I checked after finishing the book).

Since reading Dance Dance Dance I had been intending to read more Murakami, I had even decided which of his novels I was going to go for next. Then I read an extract of Norwegian Wood online and enjoyed it a lot, and knowing that I could get a copy easily during my lunch break I did. While some slagged off this book by comparison to his other novels this still is not an entirely straight forward work, for all that it is a story of teen romance. Watanabe is 37 years old when he hears a version of the Beatle's track Norwegian Wood after a long flight. Which takes him back to the period when he was 17-20, which covers the end of the 60's and the start of the 70's. When he was at school he only really had one friend, he used to hang out with him and his girlfriend all the time. However when they were 17 his friend killed himself, affecting both Watanabe and the girl, Naoko. Watanabe moves to Tokyo to go to university, keen to leave the memories behind. But one day he bumps into Naoko, his dead friend's girlfriend, who has had the same idea. They start to spend time together, essentially not having made any friends in Tokyo. But just as it seems that things are going well between them Naoko has a breakdown and ends up in a private sanatorium, where she hopes to come to terms with her problems. The two keep in touch but in the mean time Watanabe meets Midori, a girl who shares a couple of his classes. In turn the two of them start to spend time together and the spark of life and enthusiasm that burns within Midori is something that Watanabe can't help but be attracted to. With the rest of the book Murakami charts the relationships between Watanabe and these two girls, Midori and Naoko both having their strengths, while undoubtedly contrasting each other in a clear fashion.

As I've already said Norwegian Wood is readily available, as such I had picked it up in the past. The description of a book set in the 60's and inspired by a Beatle's song didn't really capture my interest. While finding Dance Dance Dance on a display I found the description there did capture my interest. So I did find my way to Norwegian Wood anyway, and in the end one of the things I like about Murakami's work is that the time it is set and to be honest the time it was written are irrelevant to the reader to a large degree. The story is about the characters and Murakami's characters are strong, his skill with dialogue really bringing them alive and providing a spark to their interactions. So the fact that Norwegian Wood is set in the 60's is mostly irrelevant. Though there are details in the commentary which flesh the book out that are clearly references to the time, and those do add to the bigger picture rather than distracting.

Curiously the character Midori feels that Watanabe reminds her of the lead from Catcher In The Rye, which she says at least once - with that the ending, for me at least, strikes of having a distinct Catcher vibe going on. In fact the whole way the ending is dealt with is a little curious, given that we start with the character looking back 20 years. Though on the whole Murakami brings the narrative to a clear point, where an ending for this kind of scope makes sense - the start of something new rather than the end of a person's story.

RVWR: PTR
September 2002