Rating: 
Summary: Simply Superb
Review: What a wonderful read Norwegian Wood is. This was my first Murakami, so I cannot compare it with any of his other work, but I can compare it to other novels and this one is clearly a cut above most. It is the story of Toru, a young college student who becomes involved with the girlfriend of his best friend who, a year earlier, commited suicide. The two deal with their unspoken grief as best they can, both following utterly different paths. Toru loves the woman, Naoko, but for various reasons, their relationship cannot develop normally. We follow Toru for a few years in college--a realistic portrait of a young man's journey toward adulthood. The story is narrated by Toru's 37 year old self. He hears Norwegian Wood in an airplane and memories of his youth come flooding back to him, so much so that he must tell his story. The story rings so true, it definitely took me back to that time in my life. The novel starts off a little slowly and then gradually builds to where you cannot put it down. It's a beautiful story filled with the pain, the awe, the confusion, the wonderment of being young and on one's own, of confronting life for the first time, of messing up, of growing up. Norwegian Wood is great. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Change of Pace for Murakami -- Or Is It?
Review: Unlike many of Murakami's other novels, this one has few or none of the fantastic elements we've come to expect from him. Rather, this is a coming of age story set in Japan in the late 1960s. Toru (there's that name again) Watanabe is a not-too-engaged drama student living his own personal drama in a world that seems to be perpetually on quaaludes.I don't want to give the plot away, but in its simplest terms, the story is one of a romantic triangle (quadrangle at times), where two of the sides are totally unconnected. It's a story of impossible promises.. In the end, it is a sweet tale of love, commitment, and growing up. This book was originally published in English in Japan (translated by Birnbaum, not Rubin), and has been long sought after here in the US. This edition is a new translation, and is Murakami's approved translation for sale outside of Japan.
Rating:
Summary: Murakami's fully mature writing
Review: I read this book in Chinese. Basically, it is Murakami's most famous work with a sensitive and light description of its character. A not clear plot but draws you into a wondered world. If you read his other works, like wind-up bird, you will feel a little strange or hard to follow. For this book, it will be a different story. It is a simple story with Murakami's way of writing. It will lead you into the real Murakami's world. If you like his work, it is a most. Also, if you like Norwegian wood, I will suggest that his new book "Spuntik sweetheart" will become pretty impressive to you. From some perspectives, Norwegian wood is 1980's Murakami. Then, "Spuntik Sweetheart" is 1990's Murakami. Norwegian Wood is written when he was in European. Spuntik Sweetheart is written in his home country Japan. What is the difference? You better find out yourself.
Rating:
Summary: "She showed me her room, isn't it good . . ."
Review: When a Japanese friend presented this book to me, implicitly urging me to read it, I was naturally skeptical. I don't pick up a book just because someone has recommended it. When I hesitated, she gave it back to me without a word. The simple, resolute force of her presence demanded that I read it. I started the book very grudgingly. Little did I know how deeply I would feel for this book when I was finished. This is one of the very few books I wanted to reread immediately after finishing it. I simply did not want it to end. The book may be finished in one sense, but it still haunts me, just as Toru remembers Naoko. The quality of Murakami's writing is so exquisite that it is the literary equivalent of "making it look easy." Some reviewers have commented on the simplicity of the story, but there are so many layers of emotional complexity and genuine depth that the illusion of simplicity is truly deceptive. When I learned what became of Naoko late in the book, I was so shocked that I had to put the book down for a while. While it may have been expected, Murakami reveals it so bluntly that it took all the wind out of my sails. His expert timing caught me at an especially vulnerable moment. By that time, I realized how closely I had bonded with these characters. I identified with these people as though they were my own college friends. I was moved by this story in a way I've never felt from any other novel. I won't be able to listen to the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" again without thinking of Naoko, Toru, Reiko, Midori, and everyone else. I can't bear to part with "Norwegian Wood," even though it belongs to someone else. I will patiently wait for the Japanese-style two-volume set of the same translation. ...
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful -- but a change from Murakami's usual fare
Review: Although Norwegian Wood was one of Murakami's earlier novels, most people are most familiar with newer works, such as A Wild Sheep Chase, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, etc. Norwegian Wood is quite different from these quirky, off-beat novels in that its tone is much more serious, although Murakami's distinctive style is still there. About the main character's love for his dead best friend's girl conflicting with her chronic mental illness, as well as about a conflict within the narrator because of another girl, Norwegian Wood is more a dark and painful love story than anything else, but it is carried off beautifully and is well worth the read -- and the wait (it took years to be published in the US).
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written and profoundedly sculpted
Review: I was keeping this book for a friend from out of town who didn't want to carry it during his short trip after he bought it. I decided to take the advantage. It ended up like this: I wouldn't let the book down even when I was eating my breakfast. This is the first book I read from Murakami and I purely loved it. The sculpture of each character was deep and thorough with imaginable but moving trace of life. Every instance seems to push the reality to the edge with the right personality and the right condition, forcing the readers to fall for it uncontrollably. Besides being influential, it's also exposing the raw truth bravely. With characters being suicidal or even died at a young age, the book doesn't seem to be dark and depressing all the time, rather was lightened up once in a while by clues such as the faithful and pure love story of Toru and Midori, which ends the book with promise. The credit to Jay Rubin, the translator, could never be diminished. It never occurred to me during the whole reading that the book is merely a translation. The elegancy and fluency of its language throughout the book was just overwhelming.
Rating:
Summary: Naoko vs. Shimamoto (from "South of the Border")
Review: No doubt this is one of Murakami's best novels; it reads so deliciously. I was in pain to see the remaining pages diminish. Although Rubin's translation is excellent, sometimes i wonder, if I read it in Japanese, the depth of poignancy will intensify. I love Murakami's usage of complex female characters such as Naoko in "Norwegian Wood" and Shimamoto in "South of the Border and West of the Sun". These characters are the embodiment of secular engimas and our beautific ideals - whatever we chase, yet knowing we can never reach. On the surface, both Naoko and Shimamoto are tearfully beautiful and "perfect" persons - sophisticated, delicate and sensually desirable - to the readers and apparently to Toru Watanabe in "Norwegian Wood" and Hajime in "South of the Border" the two main male characters in the novels. Contrary, both female characters are so "imperfect" that they are impaired to response to human warmth and consummate love from Toru and Hajime. While Toru and Hajime court them, the grief looming from the confirmation of their initial conviction deepens as they realize their sacrificial love is not answered. In addition, Murakami uses the conundrum of Naoko and Shimamoto's characters as the main thrust of suspense in his story telling. With the layers of these women's dilemma being unfolded one after another, we as readers begin to feel helpless, but compelled to pursue to the core of problems with Naoko or Shimamoto. Murakami never explicates exactly how - and why - Naoko is unable to recover or why Shimamoto in the other novel so estranged and lost the ability to simply love. In "Norwegian Wood", this sadness is reinforced through the dejected feeling of Toru, and this growing sadness remains with readers even long after the finish. We are reminded to accept certain things in life as what they are without any stipulations. Naoko is apparently a more likable character than Shimamoto's. The surreal image of Naoko's naked shape under the moonlight is "purer" than that of Shimamoto's somewhat crude sexual deviance and perversion during her last encounter with Hajime, Toru's counterpart. Given that Murakami wrote "South of the Border" some years after "Norwegian Wood" I presume the author did not want to create a character that supercedes Naoko's "imperfect" purity.
Rating:
Summary: Speechless
Review: How should I start. I first read this book 7 years ago in its Chinese translation. But after reading this newly published version it all came back to me. All the sad feelings and the helplessness. This book is just too wonderful it's beyond description. And I can't help falling into the roles in the story while listening to the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood". You have to get your hand on this book (preferably the Biritish versionto feel it for yourself. I agree with one of the reviews here this book do feel like J.D. Salinger "Catcher in the Rye". Murakami sort of admitted it himself by writing a line mentioning the book. But "Norwegian Wood" is so powerful in its own way bewteen life and dead; love and hate. This book is a lot more than its protracted images of a love story of a Tokyo college student, although it's more of a guy's romance. Its odd sex patterns and almost frequent suicides mark the authenticity of Japanese culture while strongly persevere the usual influence of American literature and culture in Murakami's works. Maybe it has something to do with Murakami being born in Kobe, a wide-open trading port where Western cultures were available in the early 1900s. Anyway, the reason I am writing this review (at 3:30 a.m.) is that I just can't fall asleep after reading it, even it's the second time in 7 years.
Rating: 
Summary: A Japanese Catcher in the Rye?
Review: "Norwegian Wood" is the novel which catapulted Haruki Murakami to national fame in Japan. The two volumes of the original edition - one in red, the other in green - were an essential must-have accessory of Japanese teenage girls. They took whichever volume fitted best with their dresses along to school. The appeal to female readership is no accident. "Norwegian Wood" is essentially a love story where a young undergraduate college student, the narrator of the novel, has to choose between two girls. Both girls are scarred, though in different degrees, by tragic events, and both experience the emotional helter-skelter of adolescence. They feel confused, sad, lost, alienated, helpless, bored, angry, empty, out-of synch, and most of all, they are trying to make sense of it all. What makes this novel special is the compassionate distance of Toru Watanabe, the narrator. Murakami has a unique talent of depicting emotions in a restrained manner which brings out the humane core in the often odd and unusual behavior of his characters. And he does not intrude upon the "world" of his protagonist: implausible and invented as it is, the story appears realistic and coherent. Murakami, unlike other Japanese authors, likes to include Western culture in his works. One example of this is his use of Western novels in the construction of "Norwegian Wood". Toru Watanabe, the narrator, is modeled in many ways on Jerome D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye", his college friend Nagasawa resembles the "Great Gatsby", and part of the novel is set in a sanatorium which hints at Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain". If you want to get a feel of the original edition, you may want to buy the paperback version published in Great Britain from amazon.co.uk which comes in two small volumes (red/green) in a box. Unfortunately, the books were printed in China and the binding seems to be of poor quality: the first 30 pages of volume one came loose from the spine when I read the book. Haruki Murakami is one of the most interesting authors I have read this year, and "Norwegian Wood" gives only a limited impression of his abilities. For a more comprehensive experience, which I do recommend, I suggest his collection of short stories "The Elephant Vanishes".
Rating:
Summary: I have found this book to be...
Review: Unbelievable, amazing and beautiful...the best that I have read in a long time.
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