This is my second Murakami novel and by far my favorite so far. If 1Q84 was a renegade odyssey, then Norwegian Wood was a threnodic Bildungsroman. Perhaps it’s just because I’m not particularly familiar with Murakami and his distinct style yet, but the absence of immaculate birth and sleazy private investigators was a welcome one. The story is painted in soft, blurring colors like an old instant photograph, and never does the novel lose its distinct nostalgia, a vaguely melancholic mood. I enjoyed this novel far more as well. The synergy of caricature and deep ruminative speculation didn’t fail to draw me in. I also very much preferred this novel’s set of female characters to 1Q84‘s. Turns out Murakami can write solid female characters, even if I still harbor a few minor complaints about how some were portrayed.

The atmosphere, that of a late 60s Japan, was also attractive to me. It provided a strong and believable backdrop for the arguably more complex entanglements of Toru and the main cast (while the university riots made an appearance, don’t expect any extensive historical detail). I kept replaying the Beatles song in my head throughout the novel, something that also supplemented the sometimes confusing plotline.

Some more tragic events throughout the novel helped to heighten the drama and pathos in the book. Any possible spiritual desolation is not dissected; it becomes a sort of Cubic centerpiece. Lana Del Rey’s “Burnt Norton Interlude” comes to mind:

“Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden.”