I have put off writing this book review for a while because I truly had no idea what to say. No fully formed thought. I’m not even sure this is here but it’s my best effort.

This is a weird book. I have no other way to describe it. I got the book from one of those Little Free Library Boxes at a nearby park and I took it because the author and the cover looked familiar. I blame TikTok for this find. I didn’t really know anything about it going in. It seemed like a cute enough love story with a focus on loss and longing. 

I have since learned that this story is not reflective of Murakami’s writing at all, which is all apparently very abstract sci-fi. I would never have guessed that reading this. I’m far more interested in the man who wrote this than the story itself, admittedly. I will say first that I am happy to give Murakami another chance, should another book of his be presented to me, but I don’t see myself seeking them out any time soon.

There are pieces from this story I liked but overall, I’m just not sure. Maybe that’s a sign of a good book. When you have so many thoughts about it that you can’t say exactly what you think of it. Maybe I’m just making it more complex than it is because I want to like it. It’s a famous book by a famous author after all.

Really, the book is a male fantasy. I think that’s the easiest way to express what makes it so weird. Is it Murakami’s fantasy? I don’t know. Is it what men wish for? Maybe. Toru is the main character and every woman he comes into contact with is obsessed with him, for no reason, they just can’t help themselves. Toru is the most average person I’ve read in a book, and not because Murakami wanted him to seem relatable to the everyday man. He was completely undeveloped, had no substance to him whatsoever. 

I had this feeling as I was reading that there was a Lolita aspect to it. When Toru describes a woman he finds attractive he uses adjectives that should belong to little girl descriptions. Women he doesn’t like are womanly. Makes you turn your head a bit, no? One of those things that you just note to see how far it goes.

I found out just how right this theory was after reading Reiko’s story. I didn’t like this story. I read about it online and a lot of people find this story deeply upsetting — I don’t blame them. I kind of cringed as I read it. I still can’t figure out what Murakami was trying to say here. I will always appreciate an author writing a character in a likable manner who does deeply unlikeable things (to say the least), but I feel like he was missing a step. Missing an acknowledgement. I want to like Reiko. She cares and she’s attentive and if I didn’t know what she did in her past, I would have loved her. What does that say?

I think Reiko is the most interesting character in the story because she really makes you think. I don’t know if Murakami meant to do this. I’d say it’s likely that he didn’t because none of the other characters bring this kind of reflection. It’s almost like Reiko is accidentally interesting. Also, for all that I read online, I think it would be a mistake for readers to stop at the hating Reiko part. 

Hate her. That’s fine. But think. How many people do I know in my life who I like and would say are good people because they behave in a way that I’ve decided is good and respectable, but I really know nothing about. I don’t know how they grew up, how they handle themselves outside of our interactions, who they are at home. I am not sympathetic to Reiko, but I am aware that her character is meant to say as much about me as it does about her. 

I will also suggest that everyone who reads this book also reads this article: A Feminist Critique of Murakami Novels, with Murakami Himself. This novelist, Meiko Kawakami, discusses with Murakami his female characters and the role they play. Kawakami has spoken about the role that Murakami has had on her writing, and the conversations they had actually became their own book. Much of this article is not about Norwegian Wood, but it is important not to stop the conversation when an author says something we don’t like, which many modern readers say of Murakami.

https://lithub.com/a-feminist-critique-of-murakami-novels-with-murakami-himself/

Murakami makes a comment in the conversation with Kawakami that the characters aren’t the focus. They are tools to get to a goal. This is an interesting perspective in a culture like America that is so intensely character driven in our stories. The story doesn’t matter if the characters aren’t kind or brave or mean in just the right way. But it is also true that he doesn’t flesh them out as much as he needs to.

Toru is the worst guy you know.  And we all know a Toru. He has no real opinions of his own. 300 pages of the book and I genuinely feel like I don’t know him at all. He is completely made up of those around him. What they want to do, what they’re feeling, what they’re going through. Everything else is just existing, surviving. 

Murakami is one of the most famous Japanese writers and it’s said that everyone in Japan grows up reading this book. That I find a bit shocking. It is quite sexual — but not in the way that romance novels are. I’d say that this book is just incredibly detailed. Murakami is so precise in what he writes. In every scene I can picture exactly what it all looks like….except the characters. Murakami spends more time describing the shape of Naoko body than he does her facial features. I know that she had a butterfly clip that she uses to pull her hair out of her face but I don’t know anything else. And Toru? Forget about it. I have no idea how to picture him. 

*Notably, I had to look up Naoko’s name when writing this because I forgot. She is the main female counterpart to Toru and I feel so little for her I can’t even recall her name.

Murakami said that Norwegian Wood was like a challenge for him because he’d never written anything like it before. I would say he failed at it, honestly. I genuinely hate critiquing authors. It’s already hard enough to be a writer, a novelist, in a world of 30 second videos. Why make it harder for them? But I worry that this book made it to the level that it did because of all the other books that Murakami wrote, which I’m sure are great — it just wasn’t amazing on its own.

Reading it from a feminist perspective, the story really is atrocious. Toru does nothing, and yet every girl he interacts with is immediately in love with him and needs him in her life. He is not kind to these women, but he’s also not exactly unkind. Except when he is, and in those moments he always finds an excuse for his behavior. Something that justifies it. He says that he’d do anything for them — plural, multiple women, individually — but he consistently fails them due to his inaction. It’s like he spent the whole book waiting for something to happen to him to fix his life. 

When Naoko died, Toru was as upset as I expected. What I didn’t expect was that when he went over his memories of what made her so lovely and beautiful — the treasure of his life — his first example was when she gave him head. 

If I step back, recognize when this book was written and why, I remember that this book was never written for me. More importantly, for Murakami, there is a feeling he is trying to pull from his readers. From what I gather, this is a man’s book. A man’s idea of love, of life. 

Even months after reading it, I guess I don’t know what to make of that.