Norwegian Wood is a book about life, and death, about learning lessons, and living through the changes within us when things beyond ourselves happen. The story is full of well developed characters; we follow the life of Watanabe and the relationships he has with Naoko and Midori, the two main female characters. Naoko was the girlfriend of his best friend. When his best friend commits suicide, he falls in love with Naoko. But the suicide affects Naoko profoundly, and she checks in to a sanitorium. In the meantime, Watanabe finds himself going through the motions of living, and growing up, and meeting Midori -- a girl who falls in love with him, even when she knows he's in love with Naoko, and that things are complicated.
While startling, his approach to sex in general is refreshing. No strange combination of words to tell you "in code" what they're talking about. Convo's regarding sex are open and forthright, unlike some of the books these days that mask body parts with cutesy phrases. I also wrote down "Interesting ideals about how sex seems to work for me, contrasting with how it works for women." His insights are good about women, considering the author is a man.
Some of the passages that seem to speak volumes:
- "Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life."
- "When you're surrounded by endless possibilities, one of the hardest things you can do is pass them up."
- "That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have for happiness where you can find it, and not worry too much about other people. My experience tells me we get no more than two or three such chances in a lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives."
When you love someone so deeply, so profoundly, their memory never fades away. Images and memories of Naoko came rushing back at Watanabe often as he learned to struggle through life with the living. "No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning."
Murakami pulls you in from the first pages, and its hard to put the book down. I read this with my best friend, and we compared notes all along the way. Thought provoking, and moving.
This is another book I'm reading by Huraki Murakami. I'm thoroughly enjoying his books -- and reading them on my new Kindle!! (Thanks to my sweet kids!) I enjoy trying to identify with a book's character, see if I can relate to them at all; if my experiences mirror any of theirs, and if so, how does what happens to them relate to me? And this time, I've identified with two of the characters, but not completely.
First is Sumire. She's one of the key characters in the story; a girl who's often alone, and writes all the time. Not novels or books, but more vignettes and snippets of things that could be put into some book or another later down the road. She also writes to help her think things through. Her best friend is someone she tells everything to -- when she can't sleep at odd hours of the night, she calls him up. The narrator of the story is referred to as K. He and Sumire have been friends for a very long time. He loves her deeply, and wants to be with her. But he accepts that they will only be friends, yet still remains sad over the fact that they'll never be together in intimate love.
Let me share a few quotes: "The world's crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I'm just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true." At one point, she tells K.: "Someday you'll get married to some nice girl and forget all about me." But the most poignant one for me has got to be: "That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way."
In the beginning of the story, I was able to relate to Sumire and her need for writing; how it helps her think, how she gets these pieces of prose that come to her, and she needs to write them down. She also has her friend K., someone she can tell anything to, someone who gives her feedback, someone who keeps her grounded. And I could relate to K as well; he loves Sumire, but accepts things the way they are because it's her choice. He never stops loving her, always quietly encouraging her to grow, to spread her wings and fly if that's what she needs to do.
I have a very dear bestest friend of that kind myself. It's very rare that we go a day without speaking or relaying some kind of message. When something good happens, he's the first one I want to tell. When something bad happens, he's the first one I want to tell, as well. I sometimes wonder if I'm the first person he thinks of when it comes to telling something. I'd like to think so, but with guys its harder to tell :P Relating to these characters was at times painful because I know what its like to love someone who prefers to keep a distance. But because it's love, you accept it for what it is, take whatever they're willing to share, wanting only the best in their life, and whatever makes them happy.
Next book on the reading list: Norwegian Wood, by Haruka Murakami
