Sandwich Joe
Murakami’s Norwegian Wood is unlike the surreal, dreamlike novels I’ve read of his before—it’s grounded, melancholic, and intensely personal. Told through the retrospective lens of Toru Watanabe (a semi-autobiographical narrator), it’s a story of grief, love, and the difficult passage into adulthood in 1960s Tokyo.
What stayed with me most is the novel’s exploration of how death shapes life. The many suicides in Toru’s life leave him torn between memory and possibility, and force him to face how “death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”
The novel isn’t always comfortable. The pacing is slow, the atmosphere heavy, and the characters are not designed to be easily likable. But by the end, it’s devastating and strangely beautiful, like the Beatles song it takes its name from: bittersweet, nostalgic, and impossible to shake.
Jay Rubin’s English translation of Norwegian Wood from the Japanese is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend it.
Murakami’s Norwegian Wood is unlike the surreal, dreamlike novels I’ve read of his before—it’s grounded, melancholic, and intensely personal. Told through the retrospective lens of Toru Watanabe (a semi-autobiographical narrator), it’s a story of grief, love, and the difficult passage into adulthood in 1960s Tokyo.
What stayed with me most is the novel’s exploration of how death shapes life. The many suicides in Toru’s life leave him torn between memory and possibility, and force him to face how “death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”
The novel isn’t always comfortable. The pacing is slow, the atmosphere heavy, and the characters are not designed to be easily likable. But by the end, it’s devastating and strangely beautiful, like the Beatles song it takes its name from: bittersweet, nostalgic, and impossible to shake.
Jay Rubin’s English translation of Norwegian Wood from the Japanese is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend it.