Literary review: Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami

In this entry I will analyse some relevant aspects of the novel that explain why I didn't like it. Along the way I will be also commenting on other novels written by Murakami.

I feel sorry that this entry is going to be about Norweigan Wood. For two reasons. The first one is that this is the only novel by Murakami I really disliked, since I thought the other two (The Wind up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore) were pretty decent, and even Sputnik Sweetheart was at least ok. And the second reason is that I feel sorry that the first long entry of my blog will be dealing with such a bad book.

So, why I dislike this book so much? I think it's mainly about its characters. They are all plain individuals that always behave based on a fixed set of rules, so you always know what to expect. Take the protagonist Toru Watanabe, for instance. Always keeping his cool in all situations, always knowing so much about everything, making everything he does wonderfully, but never showing off, not even a tiny bit. Not a very believable character to me, I'd say. And remember what Aristotle said about literature: it's better to talk about credible situations that would never occurr (eg: someone being able to fly, like Superman) rather than talking about situations that are bound to happen but which are not credible. 

The second reason is that the characters are very similar to those of other Murakami's books I've read, and that makes the book so much more predictable (Note: after writing this I realized this book was actually written before the other two, so it should be the others I should be complaining about, :) Actually, there are scenes that seem to be the product of a copy-paste made by the author in order to save some time. For example, when Hatsuni, Watanabe's girlfriend, awakes in the middle of the night and, sleepwalking, appears in front of his boyfriend and start taking her clothes off. That scene is almost identical to the one in Kafka on the Shore. And by the way, why Murakami's obsession with girls getting naked while sleepwalking? I could venture an hypothesis and say that it might have to do with the fact that Murakami is criticizing about Japanese girls being represeed, not being able to freely express what they think and give free way to their passions. However, female characters in Murakami's novels are by no means (sexually) represessed (I wish I could live inside any of Murakami's novels!).

And continuing on this topic, let's talk about sex in Murakami's novel and the fact that the novel is so not credible. If any of you have ever read a couple of novels by this author you will know that his characters find it ridiculously easy to bump into one-time sexual encounters. And this is not different in Norweigan Wood. During the day, during the night, with old women, with young students, heterosexual or homosexual, sex is everywhere in Murakami's novels. And that would be no big deal, but it is the more incredible taking into consideration that the protagonist who experiences it never seem to be looking for it, they barely try, but somehow they end up having sex in every chapter. It makes you think that Japan is the most open minded country when it comes to sexuality. Which I think it's not, but which is also why I think Murakami uses it so much, as a way to critizice this part of Japanese society. But no matter what Murakami means with it, I, as a reader, find it really boring. It's like watching any of Steven Seagals movies, in which he ends up beating up all the bad guys without even getting scratched.

Actually, one of Murakami's main concerns seem to be be to criticize the unability of Japanese to openly express their feelings, and that goes beyend sex. That deficiency affects people permanently, and lead them to a life of alienation that prevents them from ever reaching happiness. An example of this is found in Reiko Ishida, in my opinion the most unbearable characters of Norweigan Wood but a perfect example to describe Murakami's motifs. Reiko has stayed at an asylum for many years due to a mental illness difficult to diagnose. At a crucial point in her career as a piano player, she suddenly started losing all her abilities. Not many reasons are given for this, but it can be easily inferred that it is basically due to her parents obsession for her to succeed. Murakami seems to be telling us that this girl was never asked, nor did she dare expressing her own opinion, whether or not she wanted to devote all her life to the study of music, instead of leading a not so successful but much happier life as an ordinary teenager. Thus, once she loses her ability to play she realizes that she has nothing left, since all her time had always being devoted to music.

So far so good. Yet in order to develop this character, we encounter a sexual scene quite difficult to approach. In the life of this character, Reiko, and after she was sort of healed from the loss of ability to play the piano and the psychological crisis that followed this, she marries and starts giving piano lessons to a 14 year old girl. Somehow and although Reiko tries to refue, they end up having sex, which according to Reiko is the greatest sexual experience she ever had, to the point where she says that few hours after that she has sex with her husband and that was the time it felt best with him, just because she was still excited by the encounter with the 14 years old kid. I have to admit that that the description of that lesbian sexual act increased my body temperature in a few degrees, but I still can't see it in the context of the book. We are never told that Reiko felt attracted towards women, and the fact that a 14 year old girl wants so bad to have sex and is so skillful at it with her just married piano teacher is quite strange to say the least. It just seems to me like a way that Murakami uses in order to attract horny male readers and so sell more books.

In summary: a character, Watanabe, always so well read and cultured, never getting drunk no matter how much alcohol he drinks, and always honest (he literally says once "I have never lied to anyone"), the plainness of the characters, some of them almost identical to other characters in Murakami's novels and finally the overall impossible to believe atmosphere make Norweigan Wood one of the worst books I've ever read.