If one is interested in the literary world, one should definitely know about this author!
Haruki Murakami is a globally famous Japanese novel author. His way of writing books is inspired by the Western world, which he has recieved a lot of critique about since it is not very "japanese", but he has nevertheless won multiple big awards and Murakami's work has been translated to 50 different languages. Even though his books are old and very different compared to other Japanese novels continues millions of copies to sell, both in his homeland and outside of it. Murakami usually directs to the next generation, for older teenagers, young adults and adults, when it comes to his books.
Today, I would like to go through the novel that was the beginning of his high status as a professional author, and this novel is called "Norwegian Wood"!
Norwegian Wood is an older story about Toru Watanabe, and plays out at the end of the 1960s in Tokyo, during the main character's early student life. Toru tells the story himself in the novel. After losing his close friend Kazuki to suicide, Toru decides to move away from his home in the city Kobe and to the main city of Japan, Tokyo, to study theater... which he is not interested in. Their lives at that time have a background context of a weak student revolution that erupts too soon to only expose the hypocrisy of the people who lead it. One day in Tokyo, Toru encounters Naoko by mistake, which was Kizuki's girlfriend. Naoko, if not more, is obviously as deeply affected by Kizuki's death as Toru (only to later find out that Kizuki is not the only close person Naoko has lost to suicide). Naoko is broken and in severe need of someone's emotional support to be able to heal her wounds. And now comes Toru into her life. Toru and Naoko share a bond, if a sad one, a bond that becomes stronger because of Kazuki's passing. They spend several Sundays together, walking through the streets of Tokyo, and as you would expect, Toru eventually begins to fall for this girl. Unfortunately does the story take the melancholy way the longer you read.
Norwegian Wood is not so much alike Haruki Murakami's other novels, which mostly includes supernatural elements and alternative universes on the pages. Though, this book was written and released year 1987, so you have to take into consideration that this is in fact one of Murakami's older works. But even so, the result and reviews just shows that Norwegian Wood is a bittersweet masterpiece, with strong characters that almost anyone could relate to in one way or another! A movie version of the novel [with the same name] was released year 2010, so you can always turn to the film if you are not particularly a reader.
This was my first book out of Murakami's that I read, and back then, it instantly became my favourite book of all time. This changed rapidly though when I started reading his other works. Murakami has always stuck to his own, unique writing style but you can definitely see positive influences and alterations in his newer books. I'm not saying Norwegian Wood is bad; it is in my heart to this day, even if I disliked some parts here and there in the story, because I could really relate to the highly descriptive words, and mostly the characters... especially poor Naoko... It actually moved me to tears the first time I read the novel, and that is why I am writing about it and recommending it anyway!
Overall rating of Norwegian Wood: 7/10!
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