Name: Norwegian Wood
Rating: 3.892999204455052 (1257 reviews)
ISBN: 9781613834732

Jay Rubin

Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood

ノルウェイの森 / Noruwei no mori

Vasilia Alexandra

moira

Cassandra Tang

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

Imzy

Anna

Helen 

kemi

Beatriz Salvador 

Death exists—in a paperweight, in four red and white balls on a billiard table—and we go on living and breathing it into our lungs like fine dust.

Elbrich Fennema

Een jonge student in Tokio wordt heen en weer geslingerd tussen verdriet om een gestorven vriend en een mogelijke nieuwe liefde.

Norwegian wood

A Holder

Marvelous maaZa

It was my first Murakami read. It was a beautiful yet melancholic story about youth, love, relationships, loneliness, and the difficult things people carry within themselves. The story can be sad and heavy at times, but Murakami’s writing made it a memorable read. What I loved most was the atmosphere. The way he describes Japan ,the mountains, sky, seasons, cold weather, and quiet surroundings,made me feel like I was actually there. It even made me notice how rarely we stop to appreciate the weather and the little things around us. I also loved the train journeys, letters, books, and the quiet moments between the characters. It was a pleasant yet bittersweet read, and definitely made me want to explore more of Murakami’s work. Rating: 4.5/5

The tragic death of their best friend has a profound influence on the passionate relationship between Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, and Naoko, an introspective, beauty, as Toru finds himself drawn to an independent, sexually liberated young woman. Original. 50,000 first printing.

I had just finished this book a few hours ago and I'm still in a blue mood, I'm sure tomorrow would be the same. No book so far has hit me so deep in my mind. I was introduced to this certain type of maturity within the book that I was unfamiliar with. There were so many themes within the book, the prominent ones being: Romance, Depression, Death, Humor, and more. I never thought this book would be this detailed, the way Murakami describes certain settings, layouts, features whether it be people or the environment around is actually incredible. I honestly got hooked to this book after the first few pages and I kept reading after that and I've finished it probably within a week. I would most probably look for more books like this. But yeah in conclusion, this is a really good book and I recommend it highly. 

noodle

me deu mais 4 transtornos mentais.. eu amei

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.

Sarthak Verma

I liked it. Even after being in the real world, it was surreal at times, had its mysteries, and ended on a pretty inquisitive note. It was a definite page-turner and acted like a portal that took me to a different world. I'm a sucker for brand-new experiences, that bring me to a whole different place. If you're starting with reading Murakami or have already read his work, this is definitely a book-to-go.

Sinny

This is definitely the saddest book I have ever read, although I really love it, specially I loved all the music reference that Murakami's does.

Edwin Lang

Three themes emerged in my reading of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood: the impact of death particularly on young souls, how we can fall into bondage to another and loss. In Human Bondage Somerset Maugham deals with being held a virtual captive to another who does not return the affection, in Philip Carey’s love for Mildred with whom he had had nothing in common and who had used and mocked his love for her, certainly never returning it. This is what I saw in Toru Watanabe’s obsession for Naoko, a young woman whose life had been undermined if not ruined by the inexplicable and unexpected suicide death of Kizuki, a childhood boyfriend. The difference between Carey and Watanabe was that Philip Carey was inherently strong, intelligent and deep, and his obsession with Mildred was profoundly authentic and selfless; in Norwegian Wood Toru Watanabe remains weak, superficial and selfish, and the love he and Naoko share, if that is what it is, is dysfunctional and destructive. For loss, I believe in Watanabe it was more his being part of the first post-War generation, a generation that had lost anything to anchor them down, infuse their life with the meaning that it once had in Japan’s position as an imperial militaristic force for almost a century (from the 1860’s to 1945 when Japan was master of much of Asia and significant parts of China itself). No overriding imperialistic dreams that had motivated and unified the country for almost a century existed for Toru and his generation. There were riots but no 1960’s anti-establishment revolution for students like him. Their balloon had burst long before. It was I believe even worse for the author himself: I suspect that as Haruki Murakami completed Norwegian Wood, he was aware that his country was about to lose its economic dominance as well - such a resounding success to that point that Western business schools waxed eloquent of it being a miracle - only to see the country stagnate and slide into a deflation that remains with them today. Perhaps that was the real role of the quite prominent character, Nagasawa, a University school friend of Toru Watanabe, eminently likable, memorable, rebellious in his way, alive with a fire and vision, envisioning a future for Japan that others in their despondency seemed to have given up on. Unfortunately he was also ruthlessly narcissistic. There may have been too many Nagasawas in upper-echelon Japan. In the mid-1980’s as Haruki Murakami was finishing Norwegian Wood, it was beginning to dawn on critics that Japan had simply not been playing fair: its success came from adversarial trade policies, it was infested with industrial cartels, there was an entrenched oligarchy that readily sacrificed the well-being of the Japanese citizens to economic imperatives. Characters like Nagasawa were the seeds that effectively destroyed Japan a second time. For his part Watanabe was a dead soul, he had been that way even before his best friend, Kizuki, committed suicide. It is no wonder that Haruki Murakami say Norwegian Wood is no autobiography. Toru Watanabe prides himself on his literary skills but calls consuming a Herman Hesse masterpiece in a day reading and yet lingers longingly over the emptiness in The Great Gatsby probably because he felt an affinity. Watanabe is a feelingless monster. But of the two most attractive and engaging characters, next to Nagasawa, is Midori Kobayashi, a vibrant girl, innately good, alive and loving, and wonderful in her humanity and ability to repeatedly forgive Toru Watanabe. I cannot see Midori remaining with Watanabe, and I cannot see him being anything but alone. For me, Midori – as I suspect for the author too, who had along with Toru and Naoko’s roommate in the convalescent hospital, Reiko Ishida, given her a full name – seemed heroically good (as I think had even Nagasawa, although rather bad) in the face of the despair that seemed to consume all those around them. I liked Midori the best. It struck me as no surprise that Midori’s father, near death awakened, fascinated with Toru Watanabe’s talk of Euripides, a playwright he was studying in University whose work is notable for its strong, bright, brave and complex female characters. If Midori Kobayashi were alive today, and as young as she was in the novel, she would be one of the many Japanese women adopting a single life style, not in the way the author described in 1Q84, living an empty aimless life and trolling for men to sleep with in one-night stands, but living in the way she had in Norwegian Wood, remaining intelligent and engaged, taking care of her dying mother and then her dying father, and sitting from time to time bravely and insolently before a statue of a dead God, in this case Buddha, naked and with her legs spread wide. She was a woman no man would likely tame and few would be worthy of. Edwin

Tiff W

If I had a cigarette, I would have smoked it. If the train was running, I would have jumped in front of it. If there was anything in my stomach, I would have lost it all. It just felt like the thing to do… that’s the way reading Murakami affected me, even the next day. “Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.” I’ve always been conscious of prolonging memories after death, wearing it as a natural part of me so that it became ordinary, and only sometimes, painfully, realizing how deep it had left a mark on me. Maybe that was why I enjoyed the book so much. I felt just as messed up as Toru. He’s the kind of person who wants to live but can’t figure out what to live for. So he lives for the dead. He’s the kind of person who does what you secretly want to do, but don’t dare try. And since he lives for everyone besides himself, so everyone can’t help but like him. When they’re all gone, he realizes, what’s left that’s truly his? We want to feel pain, to feel love, but longing was just better. Pretending our morals held but really having none at all. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” A small piece of irony considering Norwegian Wood is Murakami’s bestselling novel… so maybe I’m not alone in thinking these things? And aren’t we all Midori, hot and cold but waiting helplessly, trying to understand where everyone else is? I heard this book is not like Murakami’s other novels, but having my first Murakami be his memoir on writing/running, I can’t help but feel a connection with the author as a runner, writer, and lost first-time adult still going through growing pains.

no matter how horny or freaked out this book seemed, it was still so profound and had this raw uncensored essence that made me feel so deeply for the characters that i even cried at the end because of the fact how sad it was … i’ll probably be thinking about this book for a while so that’s why im definitely giving it 5 stars. don’t get me wrong, the sex scenes were quite excessive and random at times but i think i focused more on the complexity of the characters and all the other topics this book dealt with, that’s how i made myself feel more comfortable reading it with that perspective 

micki

Read the haunting love story that turned Murakami into a literary superstar. 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. 'Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around' Time Out 'Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility' Guardian 'This book is undeniably hip, full of student uprisings, free love, booze and 1960s pop, it's also genuinely emotionally engaging, and describes the highs of adolescence as well as the lows' Independent on Sunday

beatnik misogyny and insufferable main character. it still moved me despite it's flaws. the atmosphere is intricate and quaint and i appreciate its nods to the titular song and the era it came from. 

Norwegian Wood

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