INTRODUCTION

Postmodernism describes a broad movement that developed in the mid- to late 20th century
across philosophy, the art, architecture and criticism which marked a departure
from modernism. While encompassing a broad range of ideas, postmodernism is typically
defined by an attitude of scepticism, irony or distrust toward grand narratives, ideologies and
various tenets of universalism, including objective notions of reason, human nature, social
progress, moral universalism, absolute truth, and objective reality. Instead, it asserts to
varying degrees that claims to knowledge and truth are products of social, historical or
political discourses or interpretations, and are therefore contextual or socially constructed.
Accordingly, postmodern thought is broadly characterized by tendencies
to epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, irreverence and self-referentiality.

The term postmodernism has been applied both to the era following modernity and to a host
of movements within that era (mainly in art, music, and literature) that reacted against
tendencies in modernism. Postmodernism includes sceptical critical interpretations
of culture, literature, art, philosophy, history, linguistics, economics, architecture, fiction,
feminist theory, and literary criticism. Postmodernism is often associated with schools of
thought such as deconstruction and post-structuralism, as well as philosophers such as
Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jean-Francois Lyotard.

Postmodern literature is literature characterized by reliance on narrative techniques such as

fragmentation, paradox, and the unreliable narrator; and often is (though not exclusively)
defined as a style or a trend which emerged in the post–World War II era. Postmodern works
are seen as a response against dogmatic following of Enlightenment thinking
and Modernist approaches to literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a
whole, tends to resist definition or classification as a "movement". Indeed, the convergence of
postmodern literature with various modes of critical theory, particularly reader-
response and deconstructionist approaches, and the subversions of the implicit contract
between author, text and reader by which its works are often characterised, have led to pre-
modern fictions such as Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605, 1615) and Laurence Sterne's
eighteenth-century satire Tristram Shandy being retrospectively considered by some as early
examples of postmodern literature.
While there is little consensus on the precise characteristics, scope, and importance of
postmodern literature, as is often the case with artistic movements, postmodern literature is
commonly defined in relation to a precursor. In particular, postmodern writers are seen as
reacting against the precepts of modernism, and they often operate as literary "bricoleurs",
parodying forms and styles associated with modernist (and other) writers and artists.
Postmodern works also tend to celebrate chance over craft, and further employ metafiction to
undermine the text's authority or authenticity. Another characteristic of postmodern literature
is the questioning of distinctions between high and low culture through the use of pastiche,
the combination of subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese author cum translator whose works of fiction and non-fiction
are critically acclaimed the world over and not just in Japan. Considered a significant figure
in postmodern literature, his works are characterized by elements of surrealism and nihilism.
Themes like loneliness and alienation are recurrent in his works. He is the proud recipient of
several awards like Franz Kafka Prize, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award
and the Jerusalem Prize. The surprising fact about this famous author is that he never
dreamed of being a writer from a young age. He entered the writing profession purely by
chance. After studying drama he opened a coffeehouse and jazz bar, and writing was the last
thing on his mind. He got the sudden inspiration to write a novel when he was watching a
baseball match and since then there has been no looking back. He wrote his first piece of
literary work, a 200-page novel which he sent to a writing contest for new writers. He won
the first prize and was inspired to write more. He soon quit his jazz bar business and began
writing full time. He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature. Steven Poole
of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his
works and achievements.

BIOGRAPHY

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949. He grew up in Kobe and then moved to
Tokyo, where he attended Waseda University. After college, Murakami opened a small jazz
bar, which he and his wife ran for seven years. His first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won
the Gunzou Literature Prize for budding writers in 1979. He followed this success with two
sequels, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase, which all together form “The Trilogy
of the Rat.” Murakami is also the author of the novels Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End
of the World; Norwegian Wood; Dance Dance Dance; South of the Border, West of the Sun;
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; Sputnik Sweetheart; Kafka on the Shore; After Dark; 1Q84;
and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. He has written three short story
collections: The Elephant Vanishes; After the Quake; and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman;
and an illustrated novella, The Strange Library. Additionally, Murakami has written several
works of nonfiction. After the Hanshin earthquake and the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in
1995, he interviewed surviving victims, as well as members of the religious cult responsible.
From these interviews, he published two nonfiction books in Japan, which were selectively
combined to form Underground. He also wrote a series of personal essays on running,
entitled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

NORWEGIAN WOOD

MEMORY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ASSET OF HUMAN BEINGS. IT’S A KIND OF FUEL,
IT BURNS AND IT WARMS YOU – HARUKI MURAKAMI

Published in 1987 as Murakami's fifth novel, Norwegian Wood is based on his short story
"Firefly,” which was later included in his short story collection Blind Willow, Sleeping
Woman. The novel falls under the genre of “Coming of Age novel”. The novel is
a nostalgic story of loss and burgeoning sexuality. It is told from the first-person perspective
of Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo. Through
Watanabe's reminiscences we see him develop relationships with two very different women
— the beautiful yet emotionally troubled Naoko, and the outgoing, lively Midori. The novel
is set in Tokyo during the late 1960s, at a time when Japanese students, like those of many
other nations, were protesting against the established order. While it serves as the backdrop
against which the events of the novel unfold, Murakami (through the eyes of Watanabe and
Midori) portrays the student movement as largely weak-willed and hypocritical.

The original Japanese title, Noruwei no Mori, is the standard Japanese translation of the title
of The Beatles song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", written by John
Lennon. This song is often described in the novel, and is the favourite song of the character
Naoko. Mori in the Japanese title translates into English as wood in the sense of "forest", not
the material "wood", even though the song lyrics clearly refer to the latter. Forest settings and
imagery are significant in the novel.

Contrary to his expectations and wishes, the book turned him from a moderately successful
author into a national star, with millions of copies of the book bought primarily by young
Japanese. He left the country for several years to avoid the fame. As he explains in his
afterword to the original Japanese edition of the novel, he began writing a story based on
“Firefly” intending for it to be short and casual, but it became much more. He considered it a
very personal and autobiographical novel, in so far as his earlier Hard-Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night and The Great
Gatsby count as being autobiographical. Indeed, much of Toru Watanabe's experiences as a
university student in 1960s Tokyo are based on Murakami's own experience at Waseda
University. He wrote the novel while in Greece and Italy in 1986 and 1987; during the
process of writing, he listened to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 120
times.

Norwegian Wood has been translated into English twice. The first was by Alfred
Birnbaum (who translated many of Murakami's earlier novels) and was published in 1989 in
Japan by Kodansha as part of the Kodansha English Library series. Like other books in this
pocket-sized series, the English text was intended for Japanese students of English, and even
featured an appendix listing the Japanese text for key English phrases encountered in the
novel. The second translation, by Jay Rubin, is the Authorized Version for publication
outside Japan and was first published in 2000 by Harvill Press in the UK, and Vintage
International in the United States. The two translations differ somewhat. Of note, there are
some differences in nicknames: Watanabe's roommate, for example, is called "Kamikaze" in
the Birnbaum translation and “Storm Trooper in the Rubin translation.

SYNOPSIS

As his plane arrives at Hamburg Airport, Toru Watanabe hears the Beatles' song "Norwegian
Wood" played over the speakers, bringing back an intense and painful memory, a scene from
18 years ago in 1969 when he was 19 years old. As he walks through a large empty meadow
with Naoko, a girl he loved, she tells him a story about a mysterious well hidden in the
grasses into which people had occasionally fallen into and died in. Naoko says that she isn't
afraid that Toru would fall in and knows that she too would be safe so long as she stayed with
him; they share this intimacy, but when Toru suggests to Naoko that she relax herself, Naoko
is hurt and explains that she can't relax because she is doing all she can to not fall apart.
However, as the two walk into a forest they reconcile and Naoko asks two wishes of Toru:
that he know how much she appreciates his coming to visit her, and that he remember her.
Toru earnestly promises at the time, but then later remarks on how the passing of time made
his memory fade of her—though it also allowed him to write about her.

In 1967, the 17-year-old Toru was living in Kobe as a quiet high school student,
with Kizuki and Kizuki's girlfriend, Naoko, as his only friends. Although Kizuki was always
the charismatic center of their group of three, one day in May he inexplicably committed
suicide by gassing himself in his car. In order to escape and forget the trauma, Toru decided
to leave his hometown for a university in Tokyo after graduating; he eventually comes to
realize from the pain that death is inseparable from life. As a laidback student studying
drama, Toru moves into a dormitory controlled by right-wing leaders where he shares a room
with an eccentric geography student, who was nicknamed "Storm Trooper" by the dormitory
because of his obsession for cleanliness and order. After coincidentally meeting Naoko in the
middle of May 1968, the first time the two had seen each other since Kizuki's funeral almost
a year ago, Toru goes on a long walk with her, chatting with her and making her laugh by
telling funny stories about his roommate. The two make plans to meet again.

Naoko calls Toru the Saturday after they first ran into each other (May 1968), and then on
Sunday the two meet for another long aimless walk through Tokyo, always talking—but
never about the past, and especially not about Kizuki. Toru is happy to be with Naoko,
although he feels that she desires something he cannot provide; without any specific
intentions, the two enter a custom where every week she calls him on Saturday and then
walks with him on Sunday. In October of the same year Toru meets Nagasawa, a highly
intelligent and impressive upperclassman living in the same dormitory, who introduces him
to the practice of picking up girls at bars to sleep with. In November, Toru turns 19. In the
winter, he begins working at a record store in Shinjuku.

On Naoko's 20th birthday in mid-April 1969, Toru brings a cake through the rain to her
apartment, where the usually reticent Naoko becomes uncommonly talkative, going on for
hours; however, Toru senses that something is wrong, and when late into the night he
interrupts Naoko to say it is time for him to leave, she breaks down into violent sobbing.
Sensing that she wants him to give her physical reprieve, Toru has sex with her and discovers
to his surprise that she is a virgin. When he asks her why she hadn't slept with Kizuki, she
begins crying again and seems lifeless by the time Toru reluctantly leaves her the next
morning. A week later Toru revisits her apartment, but finds that she has moved; so, he writes
a letter to her home in Kobe. At the end of May, the historic 1969 Tokyo student protests
begin. In June, Toru pens Naoko another letter, and then he receives a reply from her in July,
in which she writes that she has left school and entered a kind of sanatorium. At the end of
the month, Storm Trooper gives Toru a firefly, which Toru tries to release from the roof of
their dormitory. At first the bug is almost lifeless, but then it flies into the night sky.

In the summer of 1969 the student protests are decisively ended by the university, and when
the next school year begins in September, Toru, returned from several weeks of solitary travel
north of Tokyo, is astounded to find that the protestor students have folded neatly back into
university life. At lunch one Monday he gets to know a classmate from his history of drama
class, a spritely and quirky girl named Midori who shows interest in Toru. He lends her his
notes for the class, but she doesn't show up at the Wednesday lecture to return it to him. The
next Monday she does show up, and takes him to lunch and to her old school, outside of
which they talk. On Sunday Midori invites Toru over to her home, a family bookshop, where
she makes lunch for him and tells him about her painful family history; hearing the sounds of
fire engines, the two go to a balcony, where they then drink beer while Midori sings with a
guitar. At the end of this, they kiss.

The following day, Toru notices Midori's absence in their drama class, and then on Saturday
night he goes out womanizing with Nagasawa, though to no success. As he sits in a coffee
shop passing the little hours, two girls approach him and ask him to drink with them. One of
them explains that she was devastated when a few days ago she caught her boyfriend in bed
with another girl; Toru ends up sleeping with that girl in a hotel, and by the time he wakes
she is gone. He calls Midori to no avail, and then returns to his dorm to find a letter
from Naoko waiting for him.

After reading the first few words of Naoko's letter, Toru feels a rush of emotions and has to
calm himself before reading the rest. As he reads, the rest of the world seems to disappear.
Naoko writes that she has been at Ami Hostel, sanatorium-like institution, for almost four
months so far. She apologizes to Toru, because she feels she may have hurt him; however,
she urges him to understand that she has been similarly hurt. For her, the act of expressing
herself through letter-writing is a great comfort, one that makes a great deal of sense in the
kind of environment she is in, where the line between doctor and patient is blurred, and the
aim is not to cure deformities but to adapt to them. However, Naoko senses that their world,
in which people accept their deformities and other's deformities and do not hurt each other, is
far removed from the world of normal life. She ends the letter by inviting Toru to come visit
her. Toru calls Ami Hostel and makes an appointment to see Naoko the following afternoon.

The day after receiving Naoko's letter, Toru sets out for the outskirts of Kyoto, where Ami
Hostel is located. Situated in the middle of a forest, it immediately strikes him as a very
peculiar, self-secluded world where all is incredibly peaceful and clean. He meets Reiko
Ishida, a woman in her late-thirties who is Naoko's roommate and over lunch with her hears
about how the sanatorium encourages honesty and the acceptance of one's own problems,
such that the line between patients and doctors is blurred and all help each other. Reiko
shows him to the small house where she and Naoko live and then leave him there; Toru dozes
off but is awoken when Naoko unexpectedly visits him for a short talk before slipping off
again. Later she returns with Reiko, and the three eat dinner together before returning to their
house to chat and listen to Reiko playing guitar. Naoko begins to talk about why she wasn't
able to sleep with Kizuki but then breaks down in tears; Reiko suggests that Toru take a walk
while she calms Naoko, and after he returns Reiko joins him and tells him her life story.

Once a young aspiring concert pianist, Reiko was stricken by a psychological disorder and
committed to mental institutions. Though she forfeited her dream, she nonetheless seemed to
return to life when she married a man who promises to take care of her. However, this family
life of hers was destroyed when she took on a neighbour’s thirteen year-old daughter as a
piano student; outwardly the girl was angelic, but as Reiko discovered too late, inwardly she
was a pathological liar. At this point in her storytelling, Reiko decides that it is time to go
back to see Naoko.

Naoko apologizes for her breakdown and tells Toru that he was able to bring out the best in
Kizuki whenever he was around. The three go to sleep, and then in the middle of the night
Toru wakes up to see Naoko sitting in the moonlight near the couch where he is lying. As
though in a dream, she moves to his side and removes her nightgown to reveal her naked
body to him. Toru is struck by its sheer perfection. Just as silently as she entered his room,
she leaves. The next morning Toru cannot find any explanation for what he saw, and after
breakfast he, Naoko, and Reiko go on a long walk outside the sanatorium grounds to a nearby
pasture and field. When Toru and Naoko get some time alone, Naoko gives Toru a handjob
and tells him about how her sister committed suicide. That night Toru goes on another walk
with Reiko, and she tells him the remainder of her story.

The young girl, her student, very nearly succeeded in seducing Reiko, but at the last moment
Reiko was able to resist. Nevertheless, Reiko felt defiled by what had been done to her and
began to feel dangerously anxious when the neighbours shunned her due to a rumour spread
by the young girl that Reiko had tried to abuse her. In the end her mind snapped again, and as
a result she left her husband and went to Ami Hostel.

The next morning Toru takes the train back to Tokyo, where he feels alienated and
disoriented by the disorderly rush of cars and crowds so unlike the quiet and peaceful life at
Ami Hostel. When Toru returns from Ami Hostel to his dorm, he turns off the lights, closes
the curtains, and basks in the darkness. "In the darkness, I returned to that small world of hers
[Naoko's]". He masturbates, in a sense to relieve himself of her memory, but this does not
work; and all the otherworldly sensations of her prevent him from getting sleep. The next day
he comes slightly closer to reintegrating with the real world by exercising and eating lunch,
both activities which restore him to his body. However, it isn't until an encounter with Midori
that he regains his living colour.
The day after returning from Ami Hostel, Toru runs into Midori, who asks him to go drinking
with her, an experience which reorients him back to the real world after his dizzying feeling
of alienation. That Sunday Toru spends time with Midori again, and in their usual banter she
speaks about how she admires him. Unexpectedly, she takes him to the hospital where her
father is staying with terminal brain cancer and tells him about the gruelling work of taking
care of the sick man. Toru suggests that she take a break to loosen her mind and offers to
watch over her father. Strangely, he takes a liking to the man, whom he pities, while he talks
to him and feeds him cucumber. The next Friday Midori's father dies, and Toru does not see
her for a week. He writes a letter to Naoko telling her about how he misses her and how he
"doesn’t wind his spring" on Sundays.

In the middle of the same week after his visit to Midori's dying father in the hospital, Toru
cuts his palm open at work. After getting it bandaged, he goes to talk with Nagasawa, who
invites him to dinner with him and his girlfriend Hatsumi on Saturday. The three eat at an
expensive French restaurant, and the conversation appears to go nicely until Nagasawa
broaches the topic of swapping girls to sleep with and tells Hatsumi that Toru has done this
with him. Hatsumi, disturbed by this, insists that Toru tell her about it, to which he responds
that he despised what he was doing, sleeping around, but felt the need for human intimacy.
Nagasawa proclaims that he and Toru are essentially the same, both complete egoists who
cannot care about others. Deeply hurt by this, Hatsumi asks Nagasawa why he cannot
consider her feelings. The dinner ruined, Hatsumi decides to leave in a taxi with Toru instead
of Nagasawa. The two go to a bar, a pool hall, and then Hatsumi's apartment, where she
changes Toru's bandage. Toru senses that there is something very special about her and, as
the author of the frame story, mentions that not long after Nagasawa left for his job, Hatsumi
killed herself. The next day, Sunday, Toru writes his customary letter to Naoko telling her
about what has been happening in his life and how she is the only one who can understand his
thoughts of Kizuki.

Toru goes drinking with Midori and then, as promised, goes to see a porno flick with her.
Afterwards she asks him to come back home with her so that she doesn't have to sleep alone.
Reluctant at first, Toru gives in. After putting Midori to sleep, Toru reads a novel; come next
morning, he returns to his dorm. He continues writing to Naoko, who replies telling him
about the times that she becomes lonely and depressed; for his twentieth birthday she sends
him a sweater that she and Reiko sewed for him.
Over winter break Toru makes his second visit to Ami Hostel to see Naoko. She gives him a
handjob and a blowjob so that he can better remember her, and he tells her that he will soon
move from the dorm into an apartment where he hopes Naoko can join him. Although she
appreciates his kindness and optimism, she still feels confused with her problems. In March
Toru moves to a small house and spends a great deal of time organizing things and tidying
the garden. He writes to Naoko but then remembers that he hasn't been in contact with
Midori; calling her house, he finds her enraged and refusing to speak to him. He spends
spring break waiting for letters from either Naoko or Midori but receives none. The next
month Reiko writes to him telling him that Naoko's condition has worsened, which was what
prevented her from replying to his letters.

With his optimism shattered, Toru depressively retreats into his room for three days, but then
receives a letter from Midori asking to meet. This draws him back into life, and he decides
that he must mature and gain a sense of responsibility. When they meet, Midori remarks upon
how much gaunter Toru looks but then leaves unexpectedly early, leaving a note for Toru to
read later in which she complains that he hasn't noticed the new hairstyle she got for him, and
how in general he is too wrapped up in his own problems to allow others to help him. When
he sees her in class, she refuses to speak with him, and so he is plunged into painful
solitariness. He is somewhat comforted by making the acquaintance of Itoh, a painting
student with artistic interests similar to Toru's; the two chat about love and human
understanding.

It is not until the middle of June that Midori reconnects with Toru. They go eat lunch at a
department store, and then Midori tells Toru that she has broken up with her boyfriend for
him. The two kiss passionately and then go back to the apartment where Midori now lives,
where she gives him a handjob. He realizes that he is truly in love with Midori but asks her to
wait, since he is still bound to Naoko. Torn between his feelings for the two girls, he writes to
Reiko explaining his situation. She tells him to not worry and to go in the direction he feels is
natural and tells him that Naoko seems to be improving.

In late August Toru hears from Reiko that Naoko has committed suicide, and stricken by
grief he spends a month travelling without money and sleeping wherever he can. However, he
eventually decides that it is time to return to Tokyo and to life. Reiko leaves the sanatorium to
join him, and the two talks about Naoko. Reiko tells him that for one night Naoko returned to
the sanatorium from the hospital where she had been committed and that she had seemed
much healthier; Naoko became unusually talkative that night and told her about the night she
slept with Toru. The next morning Reiko discovered that Naoko was gone, and after a search
they found that she had hanged herself. To honour her memory, she and Toru hold a little
funeral for her where Reiko plays every song she knows—fifty in total. That night Reiko and
Toru have sex. The next day Reiko leaves for Asahikawa, a town in Hokkaido, to start a new
life. Toru calls Midori telling her that he needs to talk and start things over with her; she asks
him where he is, and he finds that he is stuck a place that is nowhere.
MAJOR THEMES

Death and Loss

Inexplicable, shocking suicides of young people happen throughout the novel. Notable
characters who commit suicide include Naoko, Hatsumi, Kizuki and Naoko’s elder sister, all
of whom don’t seem to have any particular reasoning behind their suicides. Midori is also left
an orphan due to her parents’ illnesses and deaths. Though Reiko’s family is still alive, she is
completely out of touch with them and so she is essentially dead to her husband and daughter,
too. Because of the strong presence of death throughout the book, loss also forms a major
theme, as each character is left to deal with loss of loved ones in their own ways. Toru in
particular comes to learn that the sorrow of loss is not easily moved past.

Loneliness and Isolation

A sense of loneliness and isolation pervades the lives of all the main characters, including
Toru. The protagonists are isolated from their parents, peers and, at times, each other. Toru
rarely interacts with his family, has lost his best friend and even loses his roommate, Midori’s
parents are deceased and/or dying (and uninterested in her while alive) and Naoko is
sequestered in a remote rural area, having lost her sister and boyfriend. Reiko is severed from
her life with her husband and child, as well as her music career.

Love and Sex

Toru and Midori’s romantic relationship told us the idea of love, sex, and responsibility.
Their relationship was up and down until it seemed to be feasible after they had learned from
the four deaths. Their passion and intimacy played a higher priority than their commitment to
each other. They were young people whose love stories can be defined as true love or love
that is perceived as “true” but are illusions based on pure physical attachment. Midori told
Toru “when I like somebody I really like them. It doesn’t turn on and off for me just like that.
Don’t you realize at least that much about me?” This is an evidence of Midori’s commitment
in a romantic love as well as her passion and intimacy with Toru. She also said: “when I’m
with you I feel something is just right. I believe in you. I like you. I don’t want to let you go.
Our relationship was getting to the point where I enjoyed being with you”. Midori defined the
love needed in her perspective that led Toru’s definition of love with Naoko as a
misunderstanding. He told Midori “I have a kind of responsibility in all this as a human
being, and I can’t just turn my back on it”. Finally, Toru recognized the reason for his failed
relationship with Naoko even they made sex successfully in the first time. He understood that
this success did not mean the true love when he and Naoko did not overlap their minds each
other as most of lovers with passion, intimacy, and commitment. Midori made the readers
admire her when conveying the idea that the need for sex is instinctual but it could be
controlled if the reason for holding back was more powerful. In addition, Midori made a
revolution among Asian societies at that time when openly expressing her need for sex
without fear of judgment. Asian cultures did not allow females to express their sexual desires
and needs even with their husbands because that was considered a socially defiant act among
the younger generation. Female Asian readers may appreciate Midori’s sacrifice and
frankness about overcoming the prejudice against women who engage in pre-marital sex.

Memories

From its beginning, the novel is immediately framed by the question of memory: the elder
Toru is painfully reminded of his time with Naoko by "Norwegian Wood" playing on the
airplane speakers, an experience that transports him back to a scene which, strangely, is
absent of him, Naoko, and anyone else. Closely connected to interpersonal understanding,
memory is one of the central aspects of love that nearly all of the characters feel: Naoko's
second and most important request to Toru is that he remember her; Reiko asks that Toru
remember her and Naoko as she leaves for Asahikawa; and Midori and Hatsumi both demand
love in terms of remembrance. One might also link memory to the pain of loneliness that
seems to be felt even by the dead, such as Kizuki, and Naoko too by the end of the novel: it is
not simply that they live on in Toru's memory, but also that they continue to be loved.

The entire book is a treatise on the power of memories and nostalgia, with Toru reflecting
back upon his college days and his young loves. Naoko, too, aware of the power yet
vulnerability of memories, begs Toru to keep her memory alive, while memories of Kizuki
haunt them both. The book’s atmosphere is also heavily coloured by nostalgia for the late
1960s in music, history, etc. The powerful memories connected to the Beatles song
“Norwegian Wood” is what set Toru’s narrative flashback into motion at the novel’s start.
SYMBOLS

The Woods

Forests and woods serve as a symbol of the confusion, beauty and loneliness of life, in which
the characters are sometimes lost and sometimes find peace and comfort. Toru and Naoko
take many pleasant woodland walks but she also chooses to hang herself deep in the woods.
The translation of the novel’s title is a play-on-words of the idea of “wood.”

1960s Music

The soundtrack to the novel serves as a symbol of the times, and of Toru’s generation of
youth growing up during the turbulent 1960s. These young people were struggling to find
their place in the world, amidst culture clashes between generations and political factions,
and the author’s choices of songs, such as Midori’s folk-group songs and those played by
Reiko, reflect this, using the power of familiar music to instantly put the reader in touch with
a sense of the times. The murky ambiguity and confusion of The Beatles song is similar to
that in the novel. It is a love story, or several love stories, as baffling as love often is. The
Beatles sang: “I once had a girl / or should I say / she once had me”. Tore is similarly unclear
as to how he should consider his relationships.

Firefly

The symbolic significance of the firefly that Storm Trooper gives to Toru is immediately
established by Storm Trooper's suggestion that Toru give it to his "girlfriend," i.e. Naoko.
Toru sees the firefly somewhat as he sees Naoko: a creature once bright and free that has lost
much of its life and become caged. Looking at its pale glow in the dark night, he thinks not of
the present but is instead flung back into memories of a past with brighter fireflies. When he
frees it on the rooftop, it is still for such a long time that Toru begins to doubt whether it is
still alive; but he waits, as any true lover waits, and finally the little bug takes flight, tracing
an arc in the air that seems to reclaim a lost past, and then flying off into the night. Although
this image is very positive for the firefly, Toru is left grasping in vain at the trail of light it
left behind in his mind.

Life vs. Death

In being torn between two very different love interests, Toru is also torn between life and
death. Troubled, melancholy, dark Naoko could be seen as symbolizing death while light,
vivacious, earthy Midori represents life. Toru is drawn to both of them. Ultimately it is
unclear who the winner is.
 CHAPTER 1

Norwegian Wood as ‘A Coming of Age’ Novel

A coming-of-age story, also called a Bildungsroman, is all about the protagonist's journey
from being a child to being an adult. It is a journey that takes a young person from naive to
wise, from idealist to realist, and from immature to mature. The path of the protagonist, or
main character, can vary from story to story. Perhaps he had to go to war, or lost his loved
ones, or experienced extreme injustice or trauma, or went on some great worldwide
adventure.

The title taken from the Beatles song, “Norwegian Wood” is a universal coming-of-age story.
Set against the backdrop of the protests of the 1960’s in Japan over the presence of American
military bases in Okinawa, “Norwegian Wood” by Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami
relates to us in more ways than we know. Murakami’s novel, published in 1987, became one
of the author’s most famous and best-selling works and is as relevant today as it was then. It
follows the story of eighteen-year-old Toru Watanabe and highlights his experiences during
his collegiate years. There is a focus on the protagonist’s romantic relationships but the novel
offers more than just that. It’s about loss, trials of youth and finding yourself amongst a
rapidly changing world. It is about a life filled with art and music; most of all it places
significance on the relationships and interactions between individuals who influence and
shape each other.

Murakami brings to light a fragile picture of the years between 18 and 22, as one struggle to
become society’s definition of an adult. Murakami’s prose has a certain charm about it which
is honest, straightforward, and clear, but also poetic and captivating to read:
“Girls my age never use the word fair. The central question for them is not whether
something is fair but whether or not it’s beautiful or will make them happy. Fair is a man’s
word…and because questions of beauty and happiness have become such difficult and
convoluted propositions for me now, I suspect, I find myself clinging to other standards—
like, whether or not something is fair or honest or universally true.”

What is most striking is how the characters’ stories interweave with each other. Nagasawa,
for example, the self-proclaimed bad boy and womanizer archetype, is more than what one
would perceive that character to be; despite the bad boy persona, he is a very charismatic,
clever, and high-achieving character. There are deeper layers within this character and as
Toru’s peer, a couple of years older than him, he has become somewhat of a mentor to Toru.

Then there are the romantic love interests: Midori and Naoko. Both contrast greatly with the
other. Naoko is beautiful, dark and mysterious — a combination that is captivating to Toru.
Midori, on the other hand, is lively and fun, with a pixie-like haircut and gives off a carefree
air. Even the minor characters of the story such as Hatsumi, Reiko, and even Storm trooper
bring a sense of diversity and fluidity to the novel that helps with the integration of stories in
each of their lives.

Toru also finds himself not really fitting in with the social and political constraints of modern
society. Big business and corporations are being built; “Old Japan” is dying and is in the
beginning stages of the new technological age. The growth that he is going through as a
character can be paralleled to the environment around him, and how it is ever-expanding and
morphing in order to suit the times.

Music also plays a role in “Norwegian Wood”, as it does in almost all of Haruki Murakami’s
novels. It makes perfect sense because he grew up in the 60’s where music and activism for
the first time truly went hand in hand. All across Japan, there were student-protests. Songs by
the Beatles are featured in the novel and they set the tone throughout the narrative. The scene
where Toru is in the mountains visiting Naoko’s retreat, Reiko, her caretaker picks up a
guitar and sings “Norwegian Wood”, John Lennon’s ode to a secret love affair and the
conflicted feelings of love and loss thereof. Murakami cleverly links the meaning of the song
to Toru’s sense of uncertainty about the two loves in his life, which is a recurring theme of
the novel.
Loss, grief and heartbreak are also central motifs within the novel. Many of today’s
upcoming college students can find an understanding and empathy with the characters in
Murakami’s novel. Not only does this narrative strike up a cord within our psyches of our
own experiences with heartbreak, relationships, college life, and anxiety of the future—
“Norwegian Wood” is a classic and Toru’s experiences can translate and parallel to any era
of adolescence. Whether we are a young adult in the 60’s, 80’s, or the10’s, these idyllic
experiences translate across the board with the “coming of age” human experience. If you are
looking for a summer read that is youth centred, nostalgic, and beautifully written, this is the
one.
 CHAPTER 2

AFTERMATH OF SUICIDE

Suicide and its effect on the living is the primary theme of this novel. The story doesn’t
revolve around the ACTUAL SUICIDE but on the painful experiences of COPING WITH
THE LOSS. In a suicide, I think it’s not the actual DEATH that scares us; it’s the FUTURE
that scares us the most. How are we able to wake up every morning without him by our side?
Waking up every day feeling that you’ve lost something you couldn’t get back. How are you
able to go on with your life when your life itself already stopped the moment he took his life?
So, every day you couldn’t escape from this never-ending loop: it drags you down, it
weakens you, and it restrains your life. You feel like you’re forever stranded in this perennial
path no one can save you and that what scares you the most.

When Kizuki died, Naoko and Toru relieve the past over and over again; their present reality
oscillates between life and death. The book reiterates the ramification of someone’s death on
the lives of other people who are left alone to cope with the loss. Kizuki’s death is indeed a
transformative event; it left the two characters detached from the reality like a nightmare for
which they cannot wake and like a dark gaping abyss from which there is no escape.
According to Sternberg (1986), there are three quantifiable aspects to see love: passion,
intimacy, and commitment. Kizuki, Naoko’s sister, Naoko, and Hatsumi were characters
ended their lives by suicide when they recognized their loves were just one of the three
aspects among passion, intimacy, and commitment instead of the existence of the three as a
whole. Stenberg also found that romantic love can be recognized when passion and intimacy
are in a balance at a higher level than the commitment. All lovers know that romantic love is
the basis for a lifelong relationship or marriage. These four characters were struggling for
their romantic relationships but they failed from their struggles that led to death as the
evidence of imbalanced correlation between passion and intimacy. To them, the death was
not serious as most Asians believed previously as an opposite of life. Toru, Kizuki and
Naoko’s friends, recognized the form of a philosophy about death: “Death is not the opposite
of life but an innate part of life” (Murakami 273). To these dead characters, their deaths may
be a continuous life that was better than the one with the lack of one or two elements defined
by Stenberg. They were so brave to decide what the best for their life and true love even
readers may be painful with their choice of suicide. For that reason, a new perspective of
death became less serious to Asians after learning a valuable lesson from this novel. In other
words, death but not loss was the fact when Toru’s lesson learned from the three characters’
deaths in the novel. In Kizuki and Naoko’s deaths, death was not an inevitable outcome, but
it was a personal choice. However, their deaths mean they were escaping their responsibilities
toward their loved ones, such as their parents, siblings, and the community. Romantic love
should be a choice rather than a must in order to prevent the absolute when romantic love
failed.

In a way the central problem of the novel is the existential question of staying alive—put
bluntly, this comes to something like, "Why not commit suicide?" All the characters face this
question, but especially those who are one relation away from death, so to speak, due to a
family member (Naoko, Midori) or loved one (Naoko, Toru) who has died or even taken their
own life. Toru realizes early on in his relationship with Naoko that the two of them are
seeking for something absent and lost, namely Kizuki, and because of this their love seems to
pull them away from life into the other world that is death. However, Midori acts as a
counterbalance for Toru, pulling him back into life just as Reiko does for Naoko—and for
Toru, following Naoko’s death.
 CHAPTER 3

WINTER AS A METAPHOR FOR DEAD

Winter is a natural metaphor for death. It reminds us that death is natural and inexorable. But
like the young characters in Murakami's novels, we are born into a culture that hides and
denies death. The dying are kept out of sight in care homes and hospices, and when we
represent death in popular culture it is as an aberration in the pantheon of immortals whose
stellar lives fill our television screens. Norwegian Wood's enduring popularity with
adolescent and 20-something readers rests on the simple insights into death, loss and grief it
conveys, so absolutely lacking from the youth culture that dominates the mass media.

Winter throws the world into cold and dark, freezing the rivers and sending life in to
hibernation, until the sun returns and spring thaws the world out. Death throws the characters
in Murakami's fiction into the never-ending cold and dark of perpetual winter. Caught in our
cultural ignorance of death, they often fail to recognise the impact of loss on their lives. And
trapped in that ignorance, the natural processes of grief cannot unfold and heal their psyche.
Even as an older man reflecting upon his life, Toru Watanabe remains horrifyingly ignorant
of the sequence of deaths and suicides that have left him trapped in a state of half-life.
Horrifying, because there are all too many people caught and suffering in exactly this state of
suspended grief in our world.

The desperate hunger of winter also brings out nature's predators. The rapacious aspects of
some human relationships, is a theme that Murakami tackles again and again. In men, that
predatory instinct can manifest as violence against women, and Murakami frequently
introduces sexually violent male characters in novels including After Dark and his
latest, 1Q84. But the most terrifying and subtle predators in Murakami's worlds are the
female characters who inflict psychological violence, often on naive and emotionally
vulnerable young men. Often those characters, like Kumiko Okada in Murakami's acclaimed
masterpiece The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, have in turn been the victims of abuse.
Murakami's characters are forced to learn the hard way that emotional dependence is not
love: another valuable lesson for youthful readers when popular culture often represents the
two as one and the same.

Haruki Murakami's novels have gained immense popularity because they guide readers
through some of life's darkest and most dangerous territory – the cold, dark winter woods of
death and grief and abuse – and do so with wisdom and warmth. Murakami's characters are
always given the seed of rebirth, although it is often unclear whether they plant it or not. Toru
Watanabe is given the chance of real life and love with the vivacious Midori Kobayashi, but
at Norwegian Wood's conclusion we do not know whether he accepts love or carries on in
grief. Murakami can only offer a path through the frozen woods, he can't make us follow. If
you find yourself wandering among the trees this winter season, I can recommend Norwegian
Wood as a guidebook.
 CHAPTER 4

LONELINESS AND ISOLATION

Toru, Nagasawa, and Reiko were three characters who symbolized loneliness and isolation in
sex and love. Toru and Nagasawa used to share each other the action of sexual freedom and
fantasies with some girls before they fell in love with Naoko and Hatsumi, respectively. Toru
successfully engaged in a sexual exchange with Naoko on her twentieth birthday after her ex-
boyfriend’s suicide, Kizuki’s death. To Naoko, that was another attempt to make sure that she
could continue invests for a romantic love with Toru. In fact, she felt lonely and isolated in
the world of lacking true love with Kizuki. To Toru, that was a misunderstanding that a
successful sex exchange meant evidence of a true love. In fact, he felt lonely and isolated
when recognizing Naoko’s body and mind did not match when trying another sex attempt
with him. A similar trend existed in the relationship with Nagasawa and Hatsumi. They were
a couple who were headed toward marriage. In fact, Nagasawa followed his career overseas
after his college graduation, and Hatsumi got married two years after their separation. Was
their love not big enough to keep themselves in a closer relationship? Hatsumi felt lonely and
isolated on the island of love that led her to a suicide after her two years of marriage. If this
couple was driven by the idea of opening themselves to each other, they would have a happy
ending of a romantic love. As of Midori’s opinion, she said to Toru “no, we weren’t lovers,
but in a way we had opened ourselves to each other even more deeply than lovers do”.
Similarly, Toru used to advise Reiko to make a new romantic relationship when he knew she
was lonely and isolated in love for a long time. Toru said “you ought to take a lover again.
You’re terrific. It’s such a waste”. He said that because they made sex and satisfied each
other as those in Midori’s opinion. Reiko said to Toru “this is no time for controlling
yourself. This is fine. It was great for me, too”. This was Reiko’s bravery to break the wall
prevented her from happiness instead of being lonely and isolated for a long time after her
divorce.
 CHAPTER 5

NORWEGIAN WOOD AS A DARK FOREST

I want to give a brief analysis of the song “Norwegian Wood” and the symbolic role it plays
in the novel. There is an obvious parallel between the lyrics and the night of Naoko's
birthday. The opening line of the song reflects Toru's relationship with Naoko "I once had a
girl or should I say, she once had me". Toru never really had Naoko; he was always chasing
her, trying to connect with her, to save her. Toru loved Naoko but she never loved him. "The
thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me". On the
night of her birthday Toru offered to leave but Naoko just kept talking, so he stayed and
drank some more wine "I sat on her rug, biding my time, drinking her wine". Eventually, the
couple go to bed "we talked until two and then she said it's time for bed". Toru leaves the
following morning and when he tries to contact Naoko later she has left the apartment, left
Toru without a word "I was alone, this bird had flown". The connection between the lyrics of
the song and the night of Naoko's birthday seem obvious but there also seems to me to be a
deeper, darker association in the novel to do with Naoko's interpretation of the song. The title
of the novel in Japanese is Noruwei no mori which translates literally as "a forest in Norway"
or "Norwegian woods" (Rubin 149). This may explain Naoko's interpretation of the song
when she tells Toru that she imagines walking all alone in a cold forest "that song 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". The forest is a potent and
negative symbol throughout the novel. At the beginning of the story when Toru's memory is
first stimulated by the song on the plane, he remembers walking with Naoko, first in a
meadow but then they walk "through the frightful silence of a pine forest as if searching for
something we'd lost, Naoko and I continued slowly along the path". The pine forest is
described as frightful, it's a beautiful day and yet the forest if frightful. Toru and Naoko are of
course connected by the loss of Kizuki. It is standing in that forest that Toru promises never
to forget Naoko, following her plaintive plea to be remembered. "I want you always to
remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood here next to you like this?".
It is his promise to remember her in that frightful forest that compels Toru to write about
Naoko, to remember her "this is the only way I know to keep my promise to Naoko".
The image of a forest as a dark place recurs later when Toru visits Naoko at the Ami Hostel
for the first time. He remembers that the bus "plunged into a chilling cedar forest" and later
"it began to seem as if the whole world had been buried forever in a cedar forest". The forest
becomes an underworld, a chilling dark place. The symbolism continues the theme
established earlier when Naoko walked with Toru in a forest. The location of the Ami Hostel,
a walled community within the woods may also be symbolic. The sanatorium is cut off from
the rest of the world; it is accessed via a road "leading into the woods". It is here that Naoko
has come to recover and protect herself from the real world, but it is here that she sinks
deeper into depression and the torment within her own mind. It is also here, on the first night
that Toru arrives, that she describes her feelings about the song “Norwegian Wood”. Naoko
does in fact end her life alone in a forest, she never escapes from that place in her mind and
Toru is unable to save her.

The final reference to a forest, or at least to trees, comes just before Toru hears of Naoko's
death, he is sitting in the garden of his rented apartment in Tokyo, the apartment in which he
has asked Naoko to live with him. He describes the cherry blossoms in the garden and the
smell of rotting flesh and this brings to his mind an image of buds growing out of Naoko's
body. "The garden filled up with that sweet heavy stench of rotting flesh. And that's when I
thought of Naoko's flesh. Naoko's beautiful flesh lay before me in the darkness, countless
buds bursting through her skin, green and trembling in an almost imperceptible breeze". Why
does Toru make a connection between cherry blossoms, rotting flesh and Naoko? Is this a
premonition? Has Toru already made the association between Naoko, death and the forest?
The image is quite disturbing if we consider that Naoko is still alive when this scene occurs.

It seems that the image of a forest as a symbol of something negative and foreboding runs
through the novel from the very first memories that Toru has of walking with Naoko, to her
eventual suicide. Perhaps the forest represents Naoko's separation from the real world, her
descent into despair and darkness. By contrast Toru's relationship with Midori is represented
by Tokyo, walking through suburbs of the city, being together in cafés and bars, spending
time on the roofs of buildings, nature is absent from their relationship. There is no dark forest
associated with Midori, only Naoko.
 CHAPTER 6

MUSIC AND MEMORY

Many of the characters and scenes in the novel are associated with music. Remembering the
past, Toru seems to associate music with particular places and people. The music is not
dispersed randomly throughout the novel but is associated with certain times, people and
places. I will attempt to analyse the music associated with the main characters in the novel
and investigate the relevance of the music chosen by Murakami, whether the songs add an
extra dimension to the narrative or provide the reader with insight into the characters.

Apart from the memory triggered by the Beatles song Norwegian Wood at the beginning of
the novel, the first mention of music associated with Naoko is the Henry Mancini album,
Dear Heart and Other Songs About Love, released in 1964, which Toru gives her as a
Christmas present. The album contains one of her favourite songs, “Dear Heart”, about
someone who is lonely, missing their beloved with whom they long to be reunited. There is a
sadness of loss in the song which reflects Naoko's sadness and loss.

Dear heart, wish you were here

To warm this night
My dear heart, it seems like a year,
Since you've been out of sight.

But Naoko's beloved, her ex-boyfriend Kizuki, is dead, and the only way for them to be
reunited is for her to die. Taken from this perspective the song is foreboding, a premonition
of her longing for death and final reunion with Kizuki. The lyrics are all the more profound
because it has been a year since Kizuki committed suicide.
Later in the novel Toru mentions that he and Naoko listen to Bill Evans on the night of her
20th birthday. This is a fateful night for her and a turning point in the story, Naoko leaves
Toru the following day and he doesn't see her again until he visits her six months later at the
sanatorium. The song doesn't appear to have any real significance to the scene or the
characters but when Toru finds the same Bill Evans album at the sanatorium he remembers
the night of Naoko's birthday. This forms a connection between that night and her ending up
in a sanatorium and it reinforces his sense of guilt and responsibility towards her.

When Reiko plays “Norwegian Wood” and Naoko describes the feelings it evokes in her we
begin to understand why hearing the song sent a shudder through Toru at the start of the story
when he was on the aeroplane in Hamburg. The song reminds him of this time when Naoko
was struggling with her inner demons and he was too self involved to be able to help her.
Naoko explains that the song can fill her with sadness and describes herself alone and cold in
a dark wood. This image of the forest is a frightening symbol for Naoko, and for the reader it
is a premonition of what is to come, the subtitle of the song "this bird has flown" hints at
what Toru the narrator knows, that Naoko will never emerge from the forest, but to the
younger Toru it was just a pleasant night listening to Beatles songs and drinking wine.

The following day Naoko, Toru and Reiko go out for a walk on the mountain and end up in
café where a radio is playing. A few popular songs are played and Reiko is offered free milk
if she plays the Beatle's “Here Come's the Sun” on the guitar. This is perhaps a glimmer of
hope. It's a beautiful day, Toru and Naoko have spent time alone together, she seems better
and the afternoon ends with Reiko singing a song of hope by the Beatles. As Toru says "I
almost felt as if the sun really was coming up again as I sat there listening and drinking beer
and looking at the mountains. It was a soft, warm feeling".

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter

Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
here comes the sun
here comes the sun, and I say
It's alright (The Beatles, “Here Comes the Sun” 1969)

Despite the optimistic lyrics and feel to the song, there is again an undertone that resonates
with Naoko's state of mind. She has been sad for a long time, over a year since her boyfriend
committed suicide, is Toru coming to visit to her a glimmer of hope or just a brief interval of
warmth in her long winter? Toru doesn't seem to grasp the depth of her depression and
associates the song with the setting which gives him a soft warm feeling. However, for
Naoko this is a just one good day or not such a bad day.

Murakami does not associate music as much with Midori in the novel as he does with the
other characters. The only scene where we are given any musical reference is when Toru goes
to see Midori and she cooks lunch for him. Toru has brought a bunch of daffodils for Midori
and she tells him that she used to sing in folk group and while she cooks lunch she sings the
song “Seven Daffodils”, a folk song originally released by The Brothers Four who were very
popular in Japan in the sixties. The song is a sentimental love song, about a person who has
nothing to offer but their love. Does this hint that Midori is falling for Toru? When they
finish lunch, the couple go up to the roof and Midori sings folk songs as they watch a
building in the neighbourhood burn. "She sang some of the folk songs she had played with
her group. I would have been hard pressed to say that she was good, but she did seem to
enjoy her own music". Perhaps what is interesting here is the fact that Midori sings. Apart
from Rieko's rendition of “Here Comes the Sun” at the end of the novel, Midori is the only
character that sings. There is a stark contrast between Naoko, who absorbs music but never
plays or sings, and Midori who expresses her lust for life through singing, watching a
building burn, contemplating death, she sings. "Oh, well...Anyway, let's stay here and watch
for a while. We can sing songs. And if something bad happens, we can think about it then".
The songs she sings are traditional folk songs which were recorded in the sixties by the group
Peter, Paul and Mary. She sings “Lemon Tree”, “Puff (the magic dragon)”, “Five Hundred
Miles” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”. In contrast to Naoko these are all relatively
upbeat songs, they reflect Midori's optimism and vitality. Also unlike Naoko, the lyrics of the
songs don't seem to provide any insight into Midori's character. The song “Lemon Tree” is
about a young man who is warned by his parents to be wary of love, and when he does fall
for girl she leaves him for another, just as Midori leaves her boyfriend for Toru, again
perhaps an indication that she is falling in love with him. One other observation that I will
touch upon later is the fact that Toru and Midori spend the afternoon on the roof of the
building which may connect this scene with the funeral songs when Toru sings “Up on the
Roof” towards the end of the novel.
 CHAPTER 7

LANDSCAPE AS NOSTALGIA

The landscape is Watanabe’s first attempt in Norwegian Wood at finding an escape through a
particular scape, and readers can view the landscape as the narrator’s attempt to establish a
place for himself. In terms of characterization, landscape deepens our understanding of
character mood, emotion and mentality. Neglecting to assess the uses of these landscapes
adequately will result only in a partial understanding on the part of the reader. Due to the
prominent role that nature and landscape hold in the text, our appreciation of the text is
greatly dependent upon our understanding of the landscape. Indeed, landscape in this text
serves a larger function than that of literary compass. Natural landscapes can be and are
purposeful literary tools that function in multiple roles; in this case, creating a place through
nostalgia, Murakami uses landscape to provide a backdrop accenting and hosting Watanabe’s
nostalgic feelings,

From the very first page, a natural setting is the controlling factor. Indeed, the narrator (whom
we later learn is Toru Watanabe) saturates the opening with attention to the “Cold November
rains,” the “dense cloud cover,” the “dark clouds,” the “gloomy air of a Flemish landscape,”
“the North Sea,” and his seemingly indifferent declaration of, “So—Germany again”. If
Watanabe pays so much attention to the landscape, it stands to reason that we should give it
ample consideration. Indeed, his observations paint a picture that informs the reader about his
emotional state. Although an individual might argue that the narration actually begins on a
plane, my reading finds that the narrator’s stresses lie not on the plane, but on the many and
varied depictions of the landscape outside the plane. Thus, in the beginning of the text, nature
serves to illuminate Watanabe’s mood and host his nostalgia.

At first glance, his narration tells us only that he is in Hamburg, Germany. Hence, the
landscape seems merely a locating device, a contrivance that marks his physical locale.
Although this information gives us a timeframe and place, the physical setting is not the
important factor. Rather, the landscape becomes an environment that reveals Watanabe’s
frame of mind. Like the “gloomy air of a Flemish landscape,” Watanabe is “kind of blue”.
His thoughts seem as dark as the “dense cloud cover” and as dreary as the “Cold November
rain”. The use and repetition of this symbolism suggests that his detailed depictions are more
than simply the interested glances of a tourist, and his observations serve the purpose of
portraying his emotional and mental state. A closer examination of the natural setting will
illustrate this point more clearly. His use of “dark cloud” imagery implies a dark mood.
Additionally, the clouds’ position over the North Sea signifies a breadth and vastness to
Watanabe’s feelings. If we read further, we find that the text supports such interpretation. As
he contemplates the clouds over the North Sea, he thinks about “what [he] had lost in the
course of [his] life: times gone forever, friends who had died or disappeared, feelings [he]
would never know again”. Without much difficulty, we infer that the sea functions as a well,
a metaphorical holding tank for his emotions. If we combine this imagery with the previously
mentioned “dark cloud” imagery, we create an impression of melancholy and depression. As
further support of this reading, the stewardess sees his expression and asks him two separate
times if he is alright. Apparently, another textual character sees the same troubled person as
the reader sees. Hence, the attention to this natural detail operates as more than decorative
filler.

Norwegian Wood tends towards this overarching landscape as the fundamental backdrop and
character piece within certain segments of the story. For example, although Watanabe only
spends three total days on his first visit to the sanatorium, this visit takes up seventy-six
pages, becoming one of the major settings for the story. Hence, the nostalgia inherent in
landscape is a vital part of the narrative. Following this bleak description of the “Flemish
landscape,” Watanabe waxes nostalgic, and, for four sentences, he transports the reader and
himself back to 1969: The plane reached the gate. People began unlatching their seatbelts and
pulling baggage from the storage bins, and all the while I was in the meadow. I could smell
the grass, feel the wind on my face, and hear the cries of the birds. Autumn 1969 and soon I
would be twenty. Similar to his Hamburg description, Watanabe’s reminiscent depiction
begins with details about natural landscape, a landscape in which he deliberately positions
himself. And it is not just any landscape, but a “meadow,” a place of beauty, of quiet and of
peace in which we find Watanabe. A meadow is for grazing and growth, an area where
animals come in order to feed, rest, and play. And, here, in the midst of this secure
environment is Watanabe. While in the meadow, Watanabe is not alone. Grass, wind, and
birdsong accompany him. While the natural setting seems happy and peaceful, the relation of
this “natural” environment functions as more than a fanciful memory. Despite the fact that
Watanabe is not a poet, we can safely infer that he identifies his nostalgic mood, in some
way, with nature, and this nostalgia partially establishes a starting place from which the
reader embarks upon the rest of the story We are in a meadow eighteen year prior to the
current time of our narrator’s life, and the season is autumn. If we couple the season of
“autumn” with his imminent birthday, we produce a new and informative picture. After all,
autumn is a season of change; the leaves change colour, and the temperature turns colder,
marking the changes in the natural world. The birdsong and the “wind on [his] face” bespeak
childhood, innocence, a feeling of youth and vitality. But, he will not be young forever. He is
turning twenty, leaving his teenage years behind and coming of age. Thus, autumn
symbolizes the move towards maturity, the time when the child must grow up and leave the
meadow, must leave the safety and comfort of what is familiar. For nostalgic reasons,
however, the narrator is unwilling to do so. Essentially, the natural setting becomes a medium
for his nostalgia, a safe place for him to be nostalgic, to reminisce and bemoan lost parts of
his life.

Despite the eighteen years that have elapsed between this scene and the one in Hamburg,
Watanabe chooses this one natural setting as his focal point. Ignoring the people moving
about and preparing to exit the cabin, Watanabe remains riveted to his seat, lost in his
nostalgia, in remembrances accented by the natural landscape. Watanabe muses that during
the time this scene actually occurs, “Scenery was the last thing on my mind. Now, though,
that meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me [. . .] all I’m left holding is a
background, sheer scenery, with no people up front”. By his admission, the scenery does
become important. In fact, it becomes “like a symbolic scene in a movie”. Storey writes that
early on within the narrative, the reader is “cued that this landscape has symbolic value”.
Thus, the natural setting that he does not, at first, find truly essential develops into the
metaphorical crux of the image, the symbolic environment that characterizes his emotional
state and his nostalgia.
 CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami is lyrical, reflective, and possibly, one of the most eloquent
living narrators about writing, love, loss, introspection, and the human condition. Murakami
has been made the subject of breathless comparisons to J.D Salinger to Jorge Luis Borges,
and in a rare article in The Guardian newspaper in 2001, he revealed that much of the ethos in
his writing is in trying to understand the meaning of life, and writing for him, is a voyage of
self discovery: “I’m looking for my own story…and descending to my own soul.”

Readers coming to Murakami for the first time will be struck by the persistent references to
Western popular and highbrow culture in his stories. Norwegian Wood, of course, borrows
its title from a famous Beatles song. During the course of this novel, Murakami’s characters
talk about Casablanca and smoke Marlboros. They read Thomas Mann, John Updike, F.
Scott Fitzgerald and Joseph Conrad. They listen to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band or Bill Evans’s Waltz for Debby. Murakami, for his part, describes a row of wooden
houses as “what you might get if Walt Disney did an animated version of a Munch painting”
and likens a mountain landscape to “a scene from The Sound of Music.” This willingness to
stray from traditional Japanese ways is perhaps even more evident in the attitudes and
psychological traits of the characters of Norwegian Wood. Instead of the salary men and
office ladies that play such a prominent role in Japan’s society and economy, Murakami
focused on the bohemian and alienated those who rejected the conformity and self-sacrifice
that had contributed to the country’s rising standard of living. “Murakami was completely
different from his predecessors,” Ginki Kobayashi wrote in the Daily Yomiuri. ” He managed
to detach himself from Japan’s literary past while creating a fictitious world that felt very
close to home for his country’s younger generation...It felt fresh at the same time as being
familiar.”

Norwegian Wood is told from the perspective of Toru Watanabe, who looks back on a
turbulent period of his life during the late 1960s, when he was a college student in Tokyo.
Toru’s friend Kizuki commits suicide on his 17th birthday, and in the aftermath of this death,
Toru becomes involved with Kizuki’s girlfriend Naoko. Naoko is reeling from the loss of
both Kizuki and her older sister, another suicide victim, and soon leaves college to move to a
mountain sanatorium near Kyoto. Toru now finds himself attracted to Midori, whose vivacity
and assertive personality stand in sharp contrast to Naoko’s fragility. Toru is caught between
the two women, and runs the risk of undermining both relationships through his own
indecisiveness.

The student unrest of the period provides the backdrop for Norwegian Wood. In many ways,
Toru’s rootlessness, his sense that he is neither Uchi nor Soto—inside or outside—of his
milieu reflects a prevalent attitude among his generation, the first to enjoy the benefits of
Japan’s new found affluence. Japan’s economy grew at a compounded rate of 10% p.a.
during the 1960s, and per capita GDP more than doubled over this same time frame. For
Murakami (born in 1949) and his peers, this provided opportunities and hitherto unknown
luxuries, even while it led many to question the enormous personal sacrifices of their parents’
generation that had made this national transformation possible. In 1969—the time period for
much of Norwegian Wood —more than 10,000 Japanese college students self-identified
as “communists” and an equally large group saw themselves as political activists. In Japan, as
in the United States and Europe, demonstrations and protests were as much a part of campus
life as lectures and final exams.

These conflicts only occasionally rise to the forefront of Norwegian Wood, but they add
colour and even occasional humour to what might otherwise be a dark, introspective coming-
of-age novel. Toru’s roommate, known only as “Storm Trooper” personifies the “old school”
attitudes of the establishment. "Storm Trooper" is “clean crazy”—he launders the window
curtains, airs out the mattresses, hunts down and kills any stray insect with excessive amounts
of bug stray—and prods Toru to take regular baths and visit the local barbershop. Storm
Trooper studies cartography with the goal of working for the government’s Geographical
Survey Institute. Murakami could very well have taken an adversarial stance to this character,
but instead he plays up the comic elements in the “odd couple” clash between roommates. In
the context of Norwegian Wood, Storm Trooper offers one more alternative in an already
confusing array of life choices facing our irresolute hero. This ambiguity of outcomes persists
to the book’s final pages, with many questions about Toru life and loves remaining
unanswered at the novel's conclusion. But this lack of tidy resolutions no doubt contributed
to the appeal of Norwegian Wood for its readers—especially the many young admirers
who were drawn to Murakami precisely because he did not offer up compact answers, wise
aphorisms and point-by-point advice. If some authors stand out for the strength and solidity
of their worldview, others are equally persuasive for their unwillingness to accept any
ultimate solutions. Murakami falls into the latter camp. And he would be even more
mysterious and harder to pin down in later years. When Murakami published Kafka on the
Shore, fifteen years later, his publisher felt compelled to set up a website where readers could
ask questions about what the novel meant. Eight thousand of them submitted their queries. By
this time, Murakami had left the realism of Norwegian Wood behind, but even in that early
novel, we see the complexity and nuanced sensibility that has set this author apart. “My
stories appeal to some sense of liberty or freedom in my readers,” Murakami
has commented. With Norwegian Wood, he created a book that was so successful at
channelling such feelings, that it became not only a bestseller and admired literary work but
also, to a great extent, defined an entire generation.