Rating: 
Summary: brilliant and authentic
Review: Norwegian Wood is my the first book by Murakami that I've read, and without a doubt it will not be the last. To be honest, I was a little skeptical after reading the first chapter, and almost let it go after this point, but a few days later I picked up Norwegian Wood again, and am very glad that I did. Murakami's exploration of human psychology and sexuality is brilliant and authentic, and although I have no way of comparing Norwegian Wood to his other works, I find it unfortunate that some are contending that this novel is "too conventional" and not up to par with his other works. Norwegian Wood is an excllent book in its own right.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written
Review: If someone had tried to tell me what this book was "about" I never would have read it. And don't ask me what it is about. It is not a love story. It is not simply a story about the hole loved ones leave when they are gone. It is not a story about mental illness, not really anyway. It is incredibly well written, riveting, funny sad and worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: Simple Beauty
Review: ... I could not get my head out of it. It's so simplisticly beautiful because of Murakami's fantastic writing. The story just flows. His realistic approach to the story line, the characters, the situations, the emotions and occurances that evolve are very touching, in a way where the reader can relate to, or draw from happenings in their own lives or others they know of. And I feel it's that reality that will draw a reader to a book, and specifically to Murakami's writing in 'Norwegian Wood'. It tell's the story of a young man, Toru, growing up in a 1960's Tokyo, and his life amongst falling in love, unusual friendships, passion, lust and loss. The story sparring a over a few years only, the reader feels so strongly for Toru, and his mishaps in falling in love, and his emotions that come through it. Naoko, Toru's first love, was introduced through his best friend Kizuki. Both Naoko and Kizuki introduce a new element to the story line I havn't really experienced before, one of real emotional confusion, not really knowing where you stand, where Toru seems to try to be differentiating between what's real in relationships, and what isn't, what's real in the world, what isn't, and why things happen for the reasons they do. This is furthur seen after some time at university, when Toru meets Midori, a girl who is in only one of classes. She literally marches into his life, and is a charater with fabulous depth, life and thought, and she really throws it to Toru, who makes him realise what kind of a person he is, where in the world they sit, how to be real, and what love, interest, passion and real emotion is. Toru is really tried to choose between what has happened in the past, and what will happen in the future. All these emotions that he feels are fabulous, because the reader can relate to so many of these, if you're a younger reader like me, 18, you can relate because you're experienceing them now. You want to know what's going to happen. You want to feel what they feel, You want to experience it, or you want to experience it again. And you love the fact that you may not be the only one feeling it. For older readers, live it again. Live the feeling of wanting to express to your first love how you feel, the crazy uncontrollable hormone levels, those first moments of sharing something new, the awkwardness that many young adults have. "Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around." Omer Ali, Time Out.
Could not be better said! Murakami is fantastic. And this is the reason why I just let myself fall into the book, and I will be again when I go to buy another of his books tomorrow! Definently definently recommended for anyone who loves life, the feeling fo desire, passion, intrigue and in that amazing imagery. Just simply beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: Blackbird singing....
Review: The German composer Richard Stauss once asked his esteemed colleague Paul Hindemith :"Dear Paul, why do you write atonal music, you have got so much talent?"
Similarly one can't often help but wonder, what books the likes of Pynchon and Barth would write if they would temporarily refrain from overt post-modernism. As far as Murakami is concerned, Norwegian Wood provides the answer to the question what would happen if he would keep the sheep and the elephants in the barn and stay out of deep wells. Not surprisingly for a writer of his stature, the results he achieves in Norwegian Wood are still fantastic. Many other reviewers have already given away way too much of the story and I will limit myself to some general comments. In a way that almost resembles Mozart, Murakami can be considered "the King of the slow movements". With the most accessible and minimal means he evokes persons, scenes and emotions with the greatest of precision. Just like Mozart, Murakami's strength lies not only in the words he writes, but more importantly in all the unnecessary ones that he omits. This book has been correctly described as a Bildungsroman. It describes a flash back at the process of coming of age in the sixties. Surrounded by student uproar, which gets an appropriately sarcastic treatment, the protagonist Toru has to find his way through the realms of love, lust and loss. This process is described in an array of powerful scenes to which the many musical references provide an essential and seamless soundtrack. In his introduction to Gaddis' Recognitions William Gass hits the nail on the head by remarking that great art cannot be approached in a reductionist mode. Similarly, the only thing I can advise prospective readers is to plunge in themselves to find out why Murakami should be considered among the very best writers around today. Subarashii desu ne.
Rating:
Summary: The best thing Murakami's ever written
Review: Norwegian Wood is easily the best thing Haruki Murakami has ever written. It is so beautiful and poetic, so rich in emotions and realism, so touching and so haunting. The story of a man choosing between a love of his past and a love of his future, Norwegian Wood carries a tremendous wave of emotions in such subtle and simple prose. That is the gift of Murakami; the music of his words. Beautiful and rich, his novels are always exercises in minimalist literature - Norwegian Wood is no different. Each passage in the novel trembles with symbolic possibility, adding to the emotions already stirred by his characters, who are, as constructed by Murakami, afloat in a world devoid of a point or purpose. They live with death, with loss and with idiosyncratic problems; they must also, however, live in a world crazier than themselves. It is established in the novel that a mental rest home is saner than the outside world. Perhaps the best way to describe this novel is as a bleak, tragic love story mixed with black comedy. For its entirety it travels smoothly and easily, becoming increasingly more intriguing and compelling, right up until the devastating denouement.
Rating:
Summary: Isn't it good?
Review: "Now... I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories of imperfect thoughts." This is how Haruki Murakami, through the voice of his noble narrator Toru Watanabe, begins "Norwegian Wood". It is a poignant beginning; one that brings into question the factuality of all that follows, but not necessarily the feeling. This is the second of Murakami's books that I've read. The first, "A Wild Sheep's Chase" lost me in its allegorical approach to the existential detective novel. "Norwegian Wood", while a much more straightforward and accessible a narrative, is no less complex. Although written in Japanese, you'd never know it. Jay Rubin's translation is seamless, capturing Murakami's easy dialogue effortlessly. The writing really shines through. As do Murakami's rhetorical techniques, which include using personal letters to get past what would be a lot of lengthy exposition. Usually I find this technique distasteful and lazy, but Murakami's letters are so skillfully economical and honest (not to mention woven consistently into the narrative) that I found it to be a rather effective technique. And his powers of language are staggering, so much so that he manages to make tired cliches seem robust. He even trumps the saccharine 'box of chocolates' simile from "Forrest Gump", coming up with an analogy of his own that is not only clever, but also relevant and original. It also helps that for Western audiences, Murakami is unexpectedly accessible, as American music and American literature dominate his thoughts. This gives the novel (like all of Murakami's novels, from what I understand) an almost paradoxical feel for Western readers. I found myself skipping along, feeling as if the story was set in Berkley during the late 1960's, but then every once and a while Japanese culture will jump up; after a touch of vertigo, you realize just how transcultural the East has become. Another of the novel's major themes, and definitely its most powerful, is the notion, often repeated, "death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life." Watanabe appears to have the Midas touch; only when he comes in contact with people, they don't turn to gold, they die. Sometimes it feels like Murakami is chronicling the genocide of a sensitive subculture of 1960's Japanese youths. Fortunately, death is never exploited. Well, sometimes it's used as a device to jumpstart the narrative, but Murakami has such sensitivity in his writing that it never feels cheap. Murakami's greatest feat is his spare recounting of college dormitory life. It's rendered realistically, providing a setting for much of Watanabe's ennui. He even notes at one point that college is nothing more than a "period of training in techniques for dealing with boredom." Luckily, Watanabe gets a lot of mileage out of the people he meets in his dorm. A fastidious roommate, a lecherous friend, and others provide a menagerie of minor characters who revolve around the story's periphery, reflecting back at Watanabe certain aspects of his personality that he may not want to see. In Watanabe, Murakami has created a terrifically grounded narrator. He is frank and plainspoken, to such an extreme degree that the people he knows keep commenting on it. He lacks pretension and ego, while constantly in a mode of observing. In many senses, he is a perfect narrator. Thankfully he fulfills that duty, because as a character you'd almost never notice him. He goes through periods where he's a cipher, and then through periods where his low-key charisma inexplicably attracts a number of beautiful, iconoclastic girls. It appears that you have to be tuned to a specific, underground radio station to really appreciate Watanabe. He's like a secret club that only attracts people who are "kinda weird and twisted and drowning". I dug him. The bulk of the novel is taken up with Watanabe's relationships with two of these weird and twisted characters. Midori, a fellow student, is a whirlwind of unbridled curiosity and unchecked ego, especially when the topic is sex. She's also funny, charismatic, sad, immature, dramatic, passionate, and highly emotional. She challenges Watanabe, and is successful in bringing him out of his shell. I found myself rooting for Midori to be the one that Watanabe chooses for love; but in the end Murakami makes you realize that love is not a voluntary thought, and that the "choice" is never that easy. Instead, Watanabe is obsessed with Naoko, the girlfriend of his dead best friend. Their love affair is always tenuous, and kind of creepy in its necrophilia. Naoko is tortured and troubled and sad. It's hard to decide if she never really loves Watanabe, or is just incapable of love. Murakami never provides easy answers when dealing with her situation. In that way she becomes not only the most real but also the most frustrating character in the book. What does Watanabe see in her? I'll never know, but I certainly recognize his reactions to a transcendent feeling. Naoko also provides the book's title. She loves the Beatles' song 'Norwegian Wood' because it "can make me feel so sad. I don't know, I guess I imagine myself wandering in a deep wood. I'm all alone and it's cold and dark, and nobody comes to save me. That's why Reiko never plays it unless I request it." Reiko, Naoko's roommate, in a typical moment of wit, comments that it "Sounds like Casablanca!" This is typical Murakami: positioning gentle emotional epiphanies against modern, pop-culture obsessed observations. It's a style that certainly makes this book, on the surface morbid and forlorn, addictively readable.
Rating:
Summary: Murakami Lite
Review: Having read most of Murakami's other works before reading Norwegian Wood, I was pretty surprised to read a fairly simple, realistic romance. Although Murakami denies that this is autobiographical, one can't help but think that he based it somewhat on his own experiences. Despite the different mood of the book, I believe that it would be a mistake to consider this book unrelated to his other works, as character traits of Watanabe, Midori, and Co. are found in many of Murakami's other works. Midori's spunk and directness in particular can be glimpsed in a lot of Murakami's later characters. As for the book itself ... although Norwegian Wood is supposedly a love story, I had a hard time seeing tender or romantic qualities in our protagonist. Like many of Murakami's characters, Watanabe is at heart a realist, and a bit more selfish than the average Murakami "Everyman". He has sex with pretty much every woman in the story so I had a hard time buying into his "love" for Naoko (he seemed more focused on her sexual prowess than her mind anyway). I couldn't disagree with Nagasawa's drunken observation that Watanabe was like him in that he was incapable of truly loving anyone. Even when he declares that he can't do without Midori and never wants to be without her again, he goes and leaves her for a month after Naoko kills herself. He even sleeps with Naoko's middle-aged roommate, Reiko. Watanabe's ideals went out the window once he had a chance to take his pants off. When Naoko died, I found myself wondering if his sadness was because she died or because he lost a sexual outlet. I couldn't help but feel that Naoko's gentle beauty was lost on him. The older, wiser Watanabe that we start the book with seems to think along the same lines, but unfortunately, we lose his insight just a few pages into the book. Norwegian Wood was an interesting read and likeable book, but not really the great literature Murakami's capable of. Norwegian Wood was written around the same time as Banana Yoshimoto's "Kitchen" and I think it would be fair to make comparisons between the two. That's not meant to be a knock on either story. Murakami himself said he wanted to do something different in writing this book, which he certainly did. A good book, but probably not among Murakami's greatest.
Rating:
Summary: isn't it good
Review: norwegian wood is my favorite beatles song. i picked up this book for that reason. it was the first murakami book i read, and different than the ones i have read since. like the song, norwegian wood is sweet and simple and sad. i enjoyed the story of a young man's journey through an extraordinarily emotional terrain. it has been a while since i have read this book, and i only hope that i can be fair in my review. when i read it, i could not put it down. i didn't want to. i wanted to stay with him, through his love and pain and heartache. i wanted to hold him through it. to take care of him ... this is the best kind of book, where you feel like you can step into the pages and take the hand of the characters - bring them through the pain. when they talk about norwegian wood, the song, a simple melody, a memory, i know what they mean. i understand. because i love that song. it is a memory to me. a journey and an understanding. norwegian wood sings, 'i once had a girl, or should i say, she once had me?' that is this book. this story. this love. she has him. he thinks, maybe, he has her, but it is a fleeting grip. a touch. she has him the entire time. and she doesn't let go. i reccommend this book to anyone who has ever felt the loss of a first love. to anyone who has ever loved at all. it may not be like the rest of murakami's books. there are no unicorn skulls or wind-up birds, but it doesn't matter. this is a gentle look at a young man realizing what it is truly like to BE a man. and all the hurt and glory that goes along with it.
Rating:
Summary: haunting elegance
Review: A love story is a perfect device for the exposition of both the mood and the analysis of the psychological state that is created by the mood. The mood is lornful longing. The psychological state is death and transfiguration. All of this beautifully told through the vehicle of a Japanese college student's attatchment to the girlfried of his chilhood best friend, who had commited suicide after a pool game. One can't help but be drawn deeply into the huge tidal waves of the protagonist's affairs of the heart (and sometimes, flesh), beneath the surface of his listless life.Nor can one fail to be impressed with the
bits of devious humor and settings of breathtakingly cool beauty that the author has used to punctuate the narrative.
Rating: 
Summary: not as good as Murakami's other work
Review: "Norwegian Wood" is the story of a young man growing up in Tokyo in the late 60s. We see the evolution of the boy into a man, we see his relationships with others. The story starts out with the older Toru reminded of this time as he hears the Beatles song "Norwegian Wood" on an aircraft. However, we never revisit this older Toru. He is simply left by the wayside. It seems odd to open the book with him, but to never have him come back into play. Murakami almost weaves the story with amazing alacrity. But, in the end, he falls short. Toru's dances with the other characters in the story (ranging from his Storm Trooper roommate to the elusive Naoko) ring not-quite-true. If you're a Murakami fan, this is a reasonably good book to read, if only to be reminded of how fabulous his other work is. If you've never read Murakami before, start with one of his other works. My favourite to date is "South of the Border, West of the Sun", but that may change as I read more of his books.
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