NORWEGIAN WOOD  

ABOUT: Norwegian Wood is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The novel is a nostalgic story of loss. 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, readers see him develop relationships with two very different women—the beautiful yet emotionally troubled Naoko, and the outgoing, lively Midori.

PLOT:  When he hears her favorite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, passion, loss, and desire- to a time when an impetuous woman called Midori marched into his life and he had to choose between the future and the past. 

REVIEW:  Norwegian Wood is written in the first-person perspective, reading the first-person perspective of the male protagonist was a new experience for me. I found it helpful to look at the world from a different viewpoint. The characters especially women took time to get used to because of the complexity they carried but the book is set in a different time so It didn’t bother me as much as the events that these characters manifested in the book, having said that, Being set in 1970 Tokyo, It painted a little door that opened in old japan and took me to beautiful towns, hills, and cities of Japan in such a subtle way that I started to long for the places in japan with fireflies, jazz clubs, and winter snow before realizing it.

Suicide and emotions that linger long after were a massive discussion throughout the book. it was as if, all the broken souls were trying to hold on to life through each other. there is a line in the book that says, “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it” and I guess it pretty much sums it all up.

In the face of despair, the book assures that Things get better if we learn to love, live, and let go. I’m so glad I read the book because it indeed gave me clarity on things I did not know I needed a better understanding of. I loved this book. and I wish I had read the book sooner, but I believe things happen when they’re supposed to, not when you wish them to happen.