Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
It’s nearly thirty years since I read Haruki Murakami’s ‘Norwegian Wood’ and given my recently rediscovered interest in all things Japanese, I thought I’d do something I rarely do - give it a re-read. I was in my early twenties when I first read it - would it have the same impact on me?
Nineties
I loved the passion I had for books back when I was younger. I remember this book having a big impact on me back in the day - it was so effortlessly cool, concerned with matters of the teenage heart, and of course death. I’d also been obsessed with The Beatles since I’d been a child, and that particular song held a deep affection for me.
Parts of it seemed to inhabit almost an inbetween world, though this didn’t really surprise me - ‘The Wind Up Bird Chronicles’ had been my first Murakami, so I was happy to go along with whatever was happening, even if was strange.
This is more straightforward - essentially the story of a man looking back on his youth - specifically his relationships with two women. His memory is triggered when he hears the title song on a plane, about 17 years later,
‘The melody never failed to send a shudder through me, but this time it hit me harder than ever.’
What is it about the song? For me it has this wistfulness, this sense of something just slipping away. The music just has the folksy warmth, Harrisons sitar adding something indefinable yet traditional to a song that sounds fresh, even now. I had to put it on whilst writing this. Still beguiling.
(Lennon wrote it under the influence of Bob Dylan — who even wrote a response song, Fourth Time Around, feeling Lennon had borrowed too closely from his style. You can hear it in the oblique, image-led lyrics).
It has this slight sense of dislocation, of being between worlds. It's the perfect sonic equivalent of what Murakami does with Japan in the novel — real but dreamlike, familiar but just out of reach.
Toru Watanabe
The story takes place in sixties Japan, with Toru living in Japan against a backdrop of student protests. He’s mostly immune to the unrest, still grieving the loss of his friend Kizuki, and generally feeling disconnected. He reads a lot, in particular F Scott Fitzgerald and Western Literature, and likes his music (of course I appreciate now that he sticks on a Bill Evans record, who I didn’t know back then).
He remains an intriguing character. He’s quite passive at times, sometimes frustratingly so, but there’s also the sense that he’s learned to exist by being at a remove from everything. There’s a stillness to him , a trustworthiness, and that’s appealing - in fact, it’s what attracts Midori and his friend Nagasawa to him.
Nagasawa is an interesting one - he’s a foil to Toru. Charismatic, driven and ruthless, whilst Toru is quiet and inward. He’s not just a villian though - he just knows what he wants, and there’s an honesty to him.
Toru is completely devoted to Naoko. But at the same time, Midori appeals because she’s different, vivacious and present. Toru is not quite there, and it’s that opaqueness, an ambiguity, that makes him so appealing as a narrator.
Naoko and Midori
The two women in this love triangle are Naoko and Midori. Naoko is the tragic figure, haunted by grief and fragile, sort of operating in a grey area between life and death. There’s something beautiful but unreachable about her. She was Kizuki’s girlfriend, so she and Toru share a deep grief. They bond by walking through the streets of Tokyo, and later in a sanatorium, a community as closed off as she is. Toru loves her, and feels he is the only who can reach her.
Midori is almost a polar opposite. She’s completely present, funny, daring and full of energy. She too has pain in her life, but she processes it in a completely different way.
That’s where the tension in the novel lies - which way does Toru want to go? He does love them both, but for different reasons. It comes down loyalty and loss versus possibility.
Japan
There’s a melancholic, beautiful (especially the countryside around the Sanatorium), slightly mysterious feel to the setting. The sanatorium where Naoko retreats sits deep in the mountains, far from Tokyo and far from ordinary life. Murakami describes it with real tenderness — cool air, dense forest, a community that exists almost outside of time. When Toru visits her there, the landscape feels like a physical expression of Naoko herself — beautiful, isolated, and quietly heartbreaking. It's one of the most evocative settings in the novel, and one that stays with you long after the story ends.
I have to also mention Reiko, Naoko’s friend (and later Toru’s) who has had a breakdown of her own. But there’s something grounded and warm about her, and some of the most warm and intimate scenes are when she’s playing guitar for them. There’s also a sense that Reiko is ok - she has scars, but she knows who she is, and is resilient.
Should you read Norwegian Wood?
Did it have the same impact on me? Well, in the same way that you can't stand in the same river twice — because you're not the same person and it's not the same river — the impact was a bit more muted this time. I'd forgotten most of the details, though I always knew the outcome. But the mood of the book was still the same.
There's no doubting it remains a haunting read, one that has lingered with me for many years. It's difficult to describe, but there's a particular quality in Murakami where you feel the absence of something you can't quite name. An ache, a wistfulness. Writing this Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood review has made me realise how much I enjoy spending time in his worlds.
I don't burn with the same desire for art, for life, that I had back then. That's just a fact of mellowing with age. But there was a quiet pleasure in falling under Murakami's spell again. I'm a bit more lived in now, so it just hit differently — and that's ok.
If you've never read Murakami, this is the place to start. It's his most accessible novel — no magical realism, no talking cats or girls stuck down wells, just a deeply human story about grief, love and the people we lose along the way. If it gets under your skin, and it will, then The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is waiting for you.
296 pages, Paperback - Translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin
First published September 4, 1987
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If you liked this, you might also like ‘The City and it’s uncertain Walls’ or ‘After Dark’ by the same author.