I once had a girl, or should i say, she once had me....isn’t it good, Norwegian wood?
No wonder Murakami named his novel after the famous Beatles song, Norwegian Wood. The song not only goes nicely with the transient mood of the book, but also encompasses what Murakami really wants to say. The song opening pictures the ambiguity of man and woman relationship, while its closing draws parallel to the existential emptiness of post-war Japan. In the middle of it all stood Toru Watanabe, a university student whose youth Murakami chronicled in 300 pages or so.
Toru is an archetype of Murakamian protagonist: a passive middle-class male who claims that his life is downright ordinary, and hopes that it stays that way. In short, a middle man in the middle part of society: not low enough to be pitied, not high enough to be appreciated. The ordinariness of Toru’s life is apparent in his job: a part-time clerk in a rundown record store. Sure, Toru’s reading is pretty impressive for his age: Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, and Thomas Mann. So is his musical taste: Bud Powell, Theolenius Monk, and other jazz luminaries. All of that however was nothing in the face of increasingly modern Japan, whose flavor of the week was local literature and contemporary pop. In them, Toru found an equal opposition. Toru found something wrong in the society he lived in and chose to ignore them. On the other hand, society found something wrong in Toru and chose to ignore him. The mutual ignorance was enough to doom Toru into lifelong mediocrity.
Unfortunately, in Murakami’s universe, nobody lives ordinarily. Something irrational is bound to happen. In A Wild Sheep Chase, the protagonist is forced upon a daunting task: hunting down a mad mutant sheep who seeks world domination. In Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, the protagonist must stop a group of evil robots from accelerating the end of the world. In Norwegian Wood, that something is falling in love with a girl called Naoko.
Naoko is the warm little center on which Toru’s life revolves. On first impression, Naoko indeed looks ordinary. She is just a shy girl, who attends a public school and changes her hairstyle regularly. What makes her unique is her affinity to absurd stories. In the beginning of the book, she speaks of a hole in the woods. “that hole is bottomless, but nobody knows where is it,” says Naoko, “I bet each year people fall into it and disappear instantly.” Her story haunts Toru so much that when Naoko really disappears, Toru falls into a long period of self-hating. What frustrates Toru is the fact that the hole in which Naoko falls is not really a hole. It is a secluded sanatorium, where Naoko spend years rehabilitating herself and commits suicide eventually.
Before her demise, Naoko had a promising relationship with Toru. Admittedly, their relationship is not something that could be perceived as normal. The romance is there, but it is too uneven to be called a romantic relationship. Toru could only watch, while Naoko does whatever she pleases. When taking a walk, for example, Toru is left reeling and Naoko just walks without a care. Toru tries to catch up, but Naoko is just too absorbed in herself. Several times Naoko turns around and makes some random comments. These are Toru’s only chance in making a progress in their relationships, and he takes it. His response however is erratic. Sometimes he just nods silently. Most of Naoko’s statements are not meant to be answered anyway. Sometimes he forces himself to squeeze out a reply, however absurd it might sounds. Eventually a dialogue occurs and their relationship tightens. Later in the story, when they are on level terms, Naoko asks, “if you have understood me, then what?” Toru replies, “It is not a matter of ‘then what’. Some people enjoy observing the railroad timetable. Some have fun from making boats out of matches. What is wrong then if there is one person in this world who take comfort in understanding you?”
Murakamian love affairs thrive on the self-negation of men. Women act as an egoistic and impulsive agency that looks exotic in the eyes of men. Men in turns become objective observers and keep all their feelings to themselves. However they try to show their feelings subtly through the books they read and the music they listen to. In Murakami’s universe, it is men’s moral duty to understand the women, even when the women fail to understand themselves.
That is why Naoko’s disappearance hurts Toru so much. It happens right after one sweet moment in their doomed relationship. For the first time Naoko admits how comfortable she is with Toru. This leads to several minutes of melodrama, when Naoko suddenly breaks down and hugs Toru. Naoko hugs him silently, then starts taking off her clothes. Toru could only return the favor by doing the same thing. They have sex for that one and only time.
In Naoko’s absence, Toru meets Midori. She is the opposite of Naoko: active, talkative, promiscuous, and not insane. Her only similarity with Naoko is her ability to turn all Toru’s attention to her. No wonder this new relationship is just as doomed as the previous one. Several days after their first meeting, Toru found himself with Midori on the window of her bedroom, singing gibberishly while the house next door nearly burns itself to the ground. Minutes after that, they kiss. Then came the big question: “would you come with me to Uruguay?” As it turns out, Midori’s father has left his family to become a farmer in South America. Should she go after her father, Midori wants Toru to accompany her. Toru refuses flatly.
Like Naoko, Midori disappears too. It also happens right after one sweet moment in their doomed relationship. Toru then visits Naoko in her sanatorium. Back from his travel, Toru finds himself again with Midori. Their relationship progresses, while Naoko stops writing letters to Toru. Then Midori disappears, and Toru is back on Naoko’s arms. The cycle goes on violently.
At this point the disappearance of women reveals the profound truth of Murakami’s stories. Men merely act as transits for women to cure their existential grief. The passivity of men functions as a basis for women to make initiatives and improve themselves. Midori says so in one of her lines, “You are different, Toru. I could do anything i want with you. I could not do that to my boyfriend.” Naoko says the same thing more explicitly, “Seeing you makes my genital wet. Even my ex could not do that. I always know you are different, Toru.”
Both statements sum up the central theme of Norwegian Wood: comfort as a zero-sum game. Being a pillow for someone’s broken heart is one thing, keeping yourself from suffering the same fate is another thing. That is what happens to Toru, and he realizes it too late. He helps Naoko and Midori to stand on their feet, but burn himself out in the process. When both of his beloved disappears, Toru lost his orientation. All this time he confuses the pain of others as an incentive for him to go on living. Without their pain, Toru only has his own pain to deal with. Ironically, he has put so much effort in caring for others that he does not know anymore how to care for himself. In the end Toru is left alone without any solution, only memories and a song to reenact those memories.
—An old review of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, written in anticipation of the film adaptation, NORWEGIAN WOOD (Tran Anh Hung, 2010)
