{"id":2459,"date":"2026-06-25T08:17:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2459"},"modified":"2026-06-25T08:22:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:22:05","slug":"bookshelf-norwegian-wood-haruki-murakami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2459","title":{"rendered":"Bookshelf \u2013 Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a university student in 1968, Toru Watanabe\u2019s life oscillates between adolescent angst about love and purpose, soothing retreats into books and cultural investigation, and nocturnal forays into the labyrinths of Tokyo\u2019s tiny whiskey bars searching for compliant young women.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In short, Watanabe is a typical teen of the late Sixties. Except for one thing: his obsession with Naoko, once the lover of his best friend, Kitzui, and now a fragile woman whose identity is shattered under the weight of Kitzui\u2019s suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNorwegian Wood\u201d is Watanabe\u2019s recollection twenty years later of that symbiotic triangle and the scars its collapse carved into him and Naoko. What keeps \u201cNorwegian Wood\u201d from ever bending toward maudlin \u2013 as many tales of love unrequited and hidden despair tend to do \u2013 is Watanabe\u2019s impassionate, almost stoic observational abilities. Whether it is Naoko\u2019s roommate at a sanitarium confessing an improper sexual interlude, or the glimpse of a cloud \u201cclinging to the dome of heaven like a thin streak of test paint,\u201d or the gradual acquisition of wisdom gained via costly emotional transactions, Watanabe watches, listens, experiences, and learns. As much as \u201cNorwegian Wood\u201d is a story of love, it is also one of maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Watanabe comes to accept, and take solace in, the belief that \u201cdeath is not the opposite of life but an innate part of life.\u201d Older Watanabe seems at peace with the repeated trauma that stained his adolescence. What doubt that persists with him is common among writers who reach for the past: \u201cWriting from memory like this,\u201d he says, \u201cI often feel a pang of dread. What if I\u2019ve forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point, Naoko\u2019s roommate, Reiko, tells Watanabe in the context of explaining why she, Naoko and Watanabe are drawn to one another, \u201cWhat makes us most normal is knowing that we\u2019re not normal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNorwegian Wood\u201d is much the same. It asks big questions about life, but it doesn\u2019t proffer big answers. Murakami allows each of us to find our own version of normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a university student in 1968, Toru Watanabe\u2019s life oscillates between adolescent angst about love and purpose, soothing retreats into books and cultural investigation, and nocturnal forays into the labyrinths of Tokyo\u2019s tiny whiskey bars searching for compliant young women. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[770,985,837],"class_list":["post-2459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-book-review","tag-japan","tag-novel"],"yoast_head":"\nBookshelf \u2013 Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami - Tim Porter's Second Draft<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In short, Watanabe is a typical teen of the late Sixties. 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