I have noticed other BookCrosser’s enthusiastic response to this author so became interested to see what attracted them. When I saw an offer from a high street book seller in the UK to buy the book for 99p I jumped at the chance and bought this on the 31st of December 2004, making it my very last book purchase of the year!

Finally got to the end of Norwegian Wood, phew. I say phew, as I felt I had made rather a too long drawn out meal of it. Not becoming really engaged in it early on I put it to one side on a couple of occasions. The slightly dislocated, fish out of water narrative evident from the beginning echoed the mood of all the different teenagers fumbling towards a place in life but it was only in the last third of the book I settled into it. The unresolved quality of the interactions between Naoko, Reiko and Toru had a different feature from these other interactions and strangely in a way felt more peaceful. Thought that was probably just because of the routine in the asylum. I was startled by but did enjoy all the assertive women, thinking that they did not conform to my expectations of Japanese women’s subservient role in society. Then again on reflection their assertiveness did take place within the gender boundaries they ultimately seemed resigned to.

The everyday weirdness of the dramatic events did make a sort of sense by the end. My sense of irritation with it was I suppose on consideration that I was wanting something more concrete. This however seems to have more of a quality of fish shadowing in and out of view as they swim ceaselessly round and round in a pond. On reflection I surprised myself by liking this. There is a cool analytical eye at work here but it’s not without a tender affection.

The translator, Jay Rubin, says that Norwegian Wood ‘is still the one Murakami book that “everyone” in Japan has read’ which is intriguing. But that some of ‘his audience was accustomed to his cool, fragmented, American-flavoured, narratives on mysterious sheep and disappearing elephants’ were dismayed that this book was “just” a love story.’ I don’t think its just a love story, in fact through three suicides and a couple of funerals, Murakami brings a sort of quiet dignity to the unresolved and messy nature of human interaction.

Just received it in the mail! My host family was surprised at all the packages in the mail for me today!
Looking foward to reading! More later!
Thanks!

My first book by this author, which is interesting after having been in Japan for a year, and a good number of English books available are translations of his.
Like rainbow3 I found it a little drawn out. And at one point I just stopped and said to myself, "Wow, a lot of people die in this book...". It just kind of felt like there wasn't anything really solid in the book, though I did enjoy reading it, it was fairly heavy reading and also hard to get into at the start. I also got interuppted about halfway though, when I got stuck biking home in a downpour with this book in my bag and so it got totally soaked and I had to let it dry before reading again! I would like to read it again just to get a more continual sense of the book, though I'm　not sure it would really make a difference.
Enjoyed it, but it took some time!

Given to a fellow exchange student, who is actually from Norway, but anyways, she's a fan of sad, depressing novels so I thought this would be a good read for her. I've tried to get her into BookCrossing but don't think I've suceeded, maybe the person she gives it to next will journal it!