Rating: 
Summary: Likable characters make this novel a favorite
Review: Norwegian Wood is a coming of age tale set in Tokyo circa the 1960s. The main character Watanabe is a sensitive character, an admirer of F Scott Fitzgerald and a man of few words. After his best friend commits suicide, Watanabe forges a relationship with his best friend's girlfriend Naoko. Naoko, however, has psychological problems in part from the loss of her boyfriend and older sister. While Naoko attempts to recuperate at a remote clinic, Watanabe immerses himself in university life as he is drawn in by his colorful classmate Midori. Through Midori, Watanabe begins to break from his solitary existence. This is the first Murakami novel I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The character of Midori is especially refreshing. The conversations between Watanabe and Midori are hilarious and touching. Midori's amorous feelings for Watanabe are evident from the start but Watanabe is too focused on Naoko to realize this. Meanwhile Naoko's struggle to overcome her depression makes for riveting drama. Naoko's roommate at the clinic, Reiko also adds some flavor to the story. Particularly evocative is the scene in which Reiko relates to Watanabe her experience with her piano student which bears directly on her psychological problems. This novel captures the struggle of young adults perfectly. The characters always ring true.
Rating: 
Summary: 'simply' beautiful...
Review: A simple tale made memorable precisely by its simplicity, 'Norwegian wood' narrates the saga of Toru Watanabe, an unassuming Japanese youth, who falls in love with his dead friend's girlfriend. The main theme of the book is Toru's patient wait for Naoko to fall in love with him and the sensitivity he shows in coming to terms with her broken psyche following the death of her beau. Along this seemingly unending wait for Naoko, Toru comes across Midori, a fellow student who adores him. A beautiful girl who likes getting drunk and watching dirty movies, Midori lights up the otherwise depressing book with her out-of-the-world antics... Its hard to not to smile when you read about this girl who, when drunk, likes climbing the roadside trees and falls asleep in the loo in the middle of the night! Reiko's another intriguing character... she's Naoko's fellow inmate who, despite her personal trials and tribulations, tries to bring about the union of Toru and Naoko. In this seemingly simple love-story, Murakami has ensured that no character in the book seems out of place... in fact, it is a pleasant summation of all of them that makes Norwegian Wood eminently readable.
Rating:
Summary: The Bird Has Flown
Review: Norwegian Wood tells the story of Toru, a 20-ish University student living in Tokyo. Toru is devoted to Naoko, the girlfriend of his deceased best friend. Toru and Naoko find each other in Tokoyo a year or so after the death of their friend. They are both lonely, living in a big new city, trying to make a new start of a life tainted by loss. They need each other and on Naoko's birthday their emotional need turns to physical need and desire. Their happiness together is short lived, as Naoko's feelings of confusion drive her to check into a facility where Naoko is able to retreat further into herself. Meanwhile, back in Tokyo Toru meets Midori. She cooks for him and becomes the friend he didn't have and the friend he desperatley needed. As the story continues Toru finds himself drawn more and more to Midori, yet he can't escape the loyalty and love he has for Naoko. This is a story of finding yourself and what you need. It's a story of loyalty, of love, of guilt, of pleasure. The pleasure it gives to the reader is unavoidable, the language it uses is lovely and makes you feel each emotion Toru experiences as if it were you experiencing it. Title after a Beatle song full of emotion, this book more than lives up to the high standard it's title gives.
Rating:
Summary: long awaited, and worth the wait
Review: I had read and enjoyed Haruki Murakami's tetralogy (Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Dance Dance Dance), and I loved his Wind-Up Bird Chronicle novel, but I was ready for something new. In reviews and on websites, I had read over and over about Norwegian Wood, the "straightforward" novel that was published years ago in Japan, which still was not for sale in the states, since there was not an authorized translation available. This novel sold a HUGE number of copies in Japan. I was wondering: I love those other novels by Murakami. Are they so demanding? Complicated? If Norwegian Wood is so much simpler than the other novels, will I even like Norwegian Wood? The plot: It's the late 1960's. College student Toru falls in love with the girlfriend of his (dead) best friend. She eventually becomes ill (though not physically ill) and has to leave to live under special circumstances, far away from him. While she's gone, he meets Midori, a college student who obviously is interested in him. But he's holding out for his girlfriend Naoko. Never knowing if she will recover from her ailment and be able to rejoin him in society, he goes to classes, sells phonograph records at night, and spends some time with Midori. He visits Naoko a few times, gets to know her wacky roommate/friend/mentor Reiki, and eventually he has to decide between a life with Naoko (without Naoko?) or with Midori. Throw in a bizarre Geography-major roommate nicknamed "Storm Trooper," a scene where Midori (badly) sings folk songs to our Toru while they watch a neighborhood fire from the balcony above her parents' bookshop, and assorted other hilarious/bizarre characters and passages, and you've got vintage Haruki Murakami. My favorite scene is one in which Midori takes Toru to visit her ill father in the hospital. He's so ill he can barely eat or speak, but Toru convinces Midori to enjoy a respite, and take a walk by herself out to a park in town. Toru is left alone with this bedridden stranger, in a situation that would seem forced, harsh, and impossible to enjoy, yet they make some very odd and touching inroads with each other. It's very unusual, and perfect in just the way that so many of Murakami's scenes seem to be. The novel isn't as complex as Haruki's other work, and it's missing some of the magical realist / sci-fi / unexplainable elements that were so prevalent in Dance Dance Dance, Wild Sheep Chase, and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. However, this novel is just as enjoyable, and just as worthwhile. This novel has a sustained emotional depth that other works by Murakami only achieve in passages. If you're a fan of modern literature at all, do yourself a favor. Read Norwegian Wood, and read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. ken32
Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: Wow! I was completely enchanted by this lyrical novel. The character development is outstanding and the mood really grabs you and gives the words a sense of depth and intense presence.
Toru Watanabe is a young man coming into his own and deciding how to live. He does choose to live though, when so many others around him are choosing to die. It is powerful to see his struggles to "wind his spring" as so much comes crashing down around him and he deals with the monotony of life. He is torn between two loves, until Reiko shows him that it is wonderful to be able to love at all, it is a gift, and that he should not feel bad for loving two women. Naoko and he have a relationship on the edge of life and death which intoxicates him and draws him to her. Midori is an amazing character (I absolutely loved her!) and so full of life that it helps keep him connected to the living world. I especially enjoyed how sex was used in such creative ways. Sex was used to help us identify with the characters, to illuminate the difference between flesh and soul, to illustrate the frustrations of growing up, to form a friendship, to share passion, just to be alive! This book did remind me of the Japanese version of The Catcher in the Rye, and Toru does read that novel quite often. There is just something about this book that transcends language and explanation. I loved this book and will definitely enjoy reading it again! A must read!
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical meditation on life and death masked as a love story
Review: This is the first book by Haruki Murakami I've read, and on the strength of this, I would certainly attempt his other novels. "Norwegian Wood" is a quick read, drawing the reader in closer and deeper as the characters, their lives, and their deaths intertwine. Having just finished the book, I'm at a bit of a loss for what to say about it. It is about love, death, youth, friendship, and ultimately, how fragile and delicate humans are, and how much we seek protection from this fragility in the arms of others or in our own private prisons. Toru Watanabe, the protagonist, locks himself in a prison of solitude, which he eventually escapes, with difficulty, only through the death of a close friend/lover and the realization that he is basically alone in the world. This realization forces him to come to terms with his feelings for a woman who challenges his cold side while simultaneously acknowledging his softer side via her own need for companionship, understanding, and love. There are many deaths in this book, although they take place somewhat at the outskirts of the other action. The deaths act as catalysts for characters to learn, grow, change, or in some cases, retreat, wither, and become isolated. It is this constant interplay between retreat and advancement, withering and growth, isolation and togetherness, which seems to be a theme of this novel, and a central struggle each and every one of its characters must face. In that respect, Murakami has hit on a central struggle for all humans: intimacy vs. independence. It's Murakami's amazingly poetic writing, his evocative, sensual observations, and the way he renders characters so complex with the simplest of language and details that makes this novel so memorable. Another reviewer compared it to Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and while the content and themes are somewhat different, perhaps the lesson is that the elusive "comfort zone," finding it and staying in it, is a major concern of and struggle for most people. There is always something ready to knock us off or out of that balance. The ending of this novel doesn't suggest that Watanabe has found that balance or lost it. It really says nothing about how Watanabe resolves the current dynamics in his life. And perhaps that "non-ending" is just another reflection of the "unbearable lightness of being," the strange place which we seem to inhabit only at times, when our expectations, needs, and actions all seem to magically work together at once. The normal state of affairs is that these things conspire to unbalance us, especially when we bring other people into the equation. "Norwegian Wood" expresses, in beautiful language, how the balance between people is so delicate, and how it sometimes takes a major catalyst, like death or loss, to jolt us into understanding our inter-connectedness.
Rating:
Summary: Sad and painful
Review: What is it about these Japanese writers that are able to make prose sound like Poetry? I am a fan of Banana Yoshimoto, another Japanese writer, whose book "the Kitchen" is one of my favorites. Norwegian Wood deals with the same "life after (the) death (of a close person)" issues and what it does to those left behind. However, whereas "the Kitchen" is a short, condensed book which brings on, alongside the feelings of grief and pain a very strong passion for life and all it has to offer, Norwegian Wood is a very long (at least - it feels like very long) tale with a lot of detailed inside reflection and thought.
I was not expecting this book to be what it is - a wonderful, dark piece of art. A heavy shadow clings to your heart while reading this story and the feeling of sadness and very deep sorrow is overwhelming and stays with you for a long time. I was therefore surprised to read that this book is described as an "erotic love story". It is true that the book has many sex scenes, but the sex is so painful and so connected to the overall grave feeling of the book that it brings no comfort. Also, the words "love story ", seem - so I feel - to simplify this very complicated story.
Reading the translator's note at the end of the book I understand that the story has some autobiographical points, especially in the portrayal of a Japanese student life in the 70 years. For me however, this was a very personal inner account of a difficult time in a young man's life - a period that will leave its deep marks and in many ways will shape the man he is about to become. Norwegian Wood deals with questions of loyalty - to yourself, to the dead and the living and discusses the thin line between sanity and insanity. Most of all you are a participant to the hero's inner world - his feelings and the process of his falling in love - what he is drawn to and what captures his heart.
Highly recceomended.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Anna Karenina
Review: The best love story I have ever read. All of Murakami's works are excellent but this is his best. If you haven't read him then buy this book now - excellent - you will not put it down until you are down with it. Don't get me wrong Anna Karenina is a great novel and a classic by any degree but this novel is just a little better.
Rating:
Summary: So much life.
Review: What a book. This is Murakami's love ballad, a story that builds to a moving climax. There is so much life here. Whereas 'a wild sheep chase' is bebop and 'a wind up bird chronicle' is free jazz, this book is a sad lovers ballad - with human frailty and sex and delusion and futility and ultimately affirmation and resolution. One of the best novels I've ever read - comparable to Milan Kundera's 'the unbearable lightness of being,' only with Murakami's unique stamp.
Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: Wow! I was completely enchanted by this lyrical novel. The character development is outstanding and the mood really grabs you and gives the words a sense of depth and intense presence. Toru Watanabe is a young man coming into his own and deciding how to live. He does choose to live though, when so many others around him are choosing to die. It is powerful to see his struggles to "wind his spring" as so much comes crashing down around him and he deals with the monotony of life. He is torn between two loves, until Reiko shows him that it is wonderful to be able to love at all, it is a gift, and that he should not feel bad for loving two women. Naoko and he have a relationship on the edge of life and death which intoxicates him and draws him to her. Midori is an amazing character (I absolutely loved her!) and so full of life that it helps keep him connected to the living world. I especially enjoyed how sex was used in such creative ways. Sex was used to help us identify with the characters, to illuminate the difference between flesh and soul, to illustrate the frustrations of growing up, to form a friendship, to share passion, just to be alive! This book did remind me of the Japanese version of The Catcher in the Rye, and Toru does read that novel quite often. There is just something about this book that transcends language and explanation. I loved this book and will definitely enjoy reading it again! A must read!
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