Review of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

*Norwegian Wood* by Haruki Murakami (2000). Published by Vintage Books.

The first time I had read Norwegian Wood, I was in high school. I was vaguely interested in Japanese literature back then, and knew Haruki Murakami was one of the places to start. It seems like for a while, he was one of the most accessible Japanese authors at the time.

So I had been able to get a copy of the book from my local library. Back in 2014, it was a lot harder to find Asian literature—now, in 2024, I see how easy it is to find Asian and Asian American authors on its shelves. We’ve come such a long way, with more work to be done in publishing.

Anyways, I was thinking about Norwegian Wood and how far we’ve come, and I decided to revisit the novel after some time.

Since then I’ve read so much wider and have some more background in the period in which the novel is set, so it feels like I’m coming in with a fresh mind at this point.

Let’s get into the review, shall we?

Toru Watanabe, an aimless college student in the 1960s, reflects on his life and romance.

We begin this novel later in Toru’s life, when he’s in his late thirties and on a flight to Germany. When a Beatles song called “Norwegian Wood” comes on, it thrusts him back into the life he had lived as a young college student in Tokyo.

It was the late sixties, and Toru had just moved to Tokyo in order to pursue his education. He didn’t really have a direction, and when he goes to college, he ends up majoring in drama despite having an interest in literature. Since it’s Tokyo in this period, there’s a lot of political turmoil and unrest happening, especially among the college students.

He makes friends with one of his dorm mates, though: Nagasawa. He’s someone who has a passion and wants to work for the government, specifically in the Foreign Ministry, and feels like someone who has so much more of a purpose than Toru. Nagasawa also likes to party and go out, bringing Toru with him on his sexual escapades.

However, Toru avoids these kinds of protests, instead moving within his own world at Waseda. But one day, when he’s outside of his dorms, he ends up meeting his former best friend’s girlfriend on the streets. She’s Naoko, but there’s a tragic past they share: his best friend killed himself senior year.

The two of them start walking together and chatting about life, but then they keep running away from the subject of Toru’s best friend and the memories they had of him. In the end, they decide to keep meeting every Sunday, yet they never manage to actually bring up the best friend.

Toru continues going out with Nagasawa, and the two boys pick up girls to have sex with them. Naoko’s 20th birthday approaches, and Toru decides to go to her apartment and celebrate. However, she’s not int he best of moods, and they end up having sex, despite her saying she’s a virgin. He asks her why she never slept with his friend, then she has a breakdown.

After that, several weeks later, he gets a letter from her saying she went to a sanatorium near Kyoto. When September arrives, Toru meets Midori, a girl in his History of Drama class. Toru starts to get an interest in her, and, after hanging out one day, he kisses her. She has a boyfriend tough and Toru claims to be in a weird situation romantically, so they end up just being friends.

A few days pass, and another letter from Naoko arrives. She tells Toru to visit, and he arrives. There, he meets her roommate, and realizes that she’s not a doctor, but a fellow patient. When he meets with Naoko, she tells him she’s not capable of loving anyone, and he goes on a walk with her roommate, who tells him about herself.

When they come back, Naoko tries to have sex with Toru in the middle of the night, yet seems to have no recollection of it the next day. When they take a walk in the woods, where she reveals that her sister committed suicide and she found the body. She tells Toru to move on, and he says he’ll wait.

Her roommate tells him the rest of her story, and Toru returns to Tokyo. There, he meets and drinks with Midori, who tells him she wants him. She picks him up that Sunday, bringing him to her father in the hospital. Turns out he has a brain tumor, and he takes care of the father while Midori is out. There, he passes a cryptic message, and when the father dies a few days later, Midori stops coming to class.

Toru writes to Naoko, but meets with Midori again when she’s ready. He makes a decision to see Naoko, where they have sex, but then she shows again concern for not being able to be in a relationship. Upon returning, he decides to rent an apartment, but doesn’t tell Midori. That angers her, and he stops talking to both women for months.

April arrives. Naoko has gotten worse, as her roommate says in a letter. Midori also contacts him, and they talk about her anger and decides she no longer wants to see him. Naoko is transferred because she’s hearing things now, and Midori comes up to him saying that she’s in love with him.

Toru is still hung up on Naoko, and Midori gives him a warning. By August, though, Naoko kills herself in the woods. Toru flees Tokyo and wanders the villages of Japan in his grief, but a fisherman tells him the secret to overcoming the trauma. Toru goes back to Tokyo, where Naoko’s roommate comes and visits.

They have a funeral for Naoko, then have sex. He then calls Midori, telling her he wants her, and the novel ends with him shouting her name.

Overall Thoughts

While I do think Haruki Murakami is a great writer, and can convey the atmosphere of his novels in such a succinct manner, the critiques of how he portrays women do hold up after all these years. I didn’t recognize it as much as a high schooler, but has become more obvious to me now.

The structure of this novel itself and how the plot happens is deeply problematic. The main character’s dilemma stems largely for the women in his life, and they’re unable to have their own stories dominated by the men in their lives. They don’t exist outside of the male gaze.

The cherry on the cake is when he has sex with Naoko’s roommate—that was so uncalled for. I didn’t think it was necessary at all. In the end, I was also more interested in the women’s stories, so it was such a shame that we ended being stuck with Toru as the conduit to tell the story.

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