đź“— -> Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
Themes
Broad themes
Suicide
Sexuality
Spirals
Legacy
Drifting / Having life happen to you
Interesting spins on themes
Motivations
Work as a whole
Characters
Toru
Naoko
Reiko
Midori
Met and introduce talking about how he likes her hair.
Nagasawa
“We’re a lot alike, though, Watanabe and me,” said Nagasawa. “Neither of us is interested, essentially, in anything but ourselves. OK, so I’m arrogant and he’s not, but neither of us is able to feel any interest in anything other than what we ourselves think or feel or do. That’s why we can think about things in a way that’s totally divorced from anybody else. That’s what I like about him. The only difference is that he hasn’t realized this about himself, and so he hesitates and feels hurt.”
- Page 249
Kizuru
Hatsumi
Storm Trooper
Personal Thoughts
Enjoyment
Im struggling to find the words for how to express it, but I loved this book.
I think what struck me most about it is Murakami’s ability to put words on the mundane and stick with it, long enough that you feel like you’re there with him in his boring Tokyo Sunday with nothing actually happening. I know that all authors do this to some extent (“setting the scene”) but with Murakami, I feel like I learn something about myself and the world around me when he describes a person’s character, or a rooms qualities. I feel like I would have to be a fundamentally different person to make his observations. And I want to get closer to that.
View of themes
Quotes
I should have marked up this book when I first read it. There are so many poignant thoughts that resonated with me deeply, that I simply could not find in a quick skim to try and recapture them. At some point I want to go back and savor his writing again.
It takes time, though, for Naoko’s face to appear. And as the years have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I could recall in 5 seconds all too soon needed 10, then 30, then a full minute - like shadows lengthening at dusk. Someday, I suppose, the shadows will be swallowed up in darkness. There is no way around it: my memory is growing ever more distant from the spot where Naoko used to stand - where my old self used to stand.
- Page 7
Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.
…
Until that time, I had understood death as something entirely separate from and independent of life. The hand of death is bound to take us, I had felt, but until the day it reaches out for us, it leaves us alone. This had seemed to me the simple, logical truth. Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there.
The night Kizuki died, however, I lost the ability to see death (and life) in such simple terms. Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that.
- Page 31
“What kind of authors do you like?” I asked, speaking in respectful tones to this man two years my senior.
“Balzac, Dante, Joseph Conrad, Dickens,” he answered without hesitation. “Not exactly fashionable.”
“That’s why I read them. If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That’s the world of hicks and slobs. Real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that. Haven’t you noticed, Watanabe? You and I are the only real ones in this dorm. The other guys are crap.”
- Nagasawa and Toru, 37
“After you’ve done this 70 times, doesn’t it begin to seem kind of pointless?”
“That proves you’re a decent human being,” he said. “Congratulations. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one strange woman after another. It just tires you out and makes you disgusted with yourself. It’s the same for me.”
“So why the hell do you keep it up?”
“Hard to say. Hey, you know that thing Dostoevsky wrote on gambling? It’s like that. When you’re surrounded by endless possibilities, one of the hardest things you can do is pass them up. See what I mean?”
- Page 42
Kizuki died that night, and ever since a cold, stiffening wind had come between me and the world. This boy Kizuki: what had his existence meant to me? To this question I could find no answer. All I knew - with absolute certainty - was that Kizuki’s death had robbed me for ever of some part of my adolescence. But what that meant, and what would come of it, were far beyond my understanding
- Page 96
“I’m sorry,” said Naoko. “I don’t mean to hurt you, but this much you have to understand: Kizuki and I had a truly special relationship. We had been together from the time we were three. It’s how we grew up: always together, always talking, understanding each other perfectly. The first time we kissed it was in the first year of junior school - was just wonderful. The first time I had my period, I ran to him and cried like a baby. We were that close. So after he died, I didn’t know how to relate to other people. I didn’t know what it meant to love another person.”
- Page 136
“So that’s when it hit me. These guys are fakes. All they’ve got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they’re so proud of, while sticking their hands up their skirts. And when they graduate, they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who’ve never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don’t make me laugh! And the new members were just as bad. They didn’t understand a thing either, but they pretended to and they were laughing at me. After the meeting, they told me, “Don’t be silly! So what if you don’t understand? Just agree with everything they say.’
- Page 214
“I look around me sometimes and I get sick to my stomach. Why the hell don’t these bastards do something? I wonder. They don’t do a fucking thing, and then they moan about it.”
Amazed at the harshness of his tone, I looked at Nagasawa. “The way I see it, people are working hard. They’re working their fingers to the bone. Or am I looking at things wrong?”
“That’s not hard work. It’s just manual labour,” Nagasawa said with finality. “The “hard work’ I’m talking about is more self-directed and purposeful.”
“You mean, like studying Spanish while everyone else is taking it easy?”
“That’s it. I’m going to have Spanish mastered by next spring. I’ve got English and German and French down pat, and I’m almost there with Italian. You think things like that happen without hard work?
- Page 242
“What do you want me to say?”
“Anything. Something to make me feel good.”
“You’re really cute,” I said.
” - Midori,” she said. “Say my name.”
“You’re really cute, Midori,” I corrected myself.
“What do you mean really cute?”
“So cute the mountains crumble and the oceans dry up.” Midori lifted her face and looked at me. “You have this special way with words.”
“I can feel my heart softening when you say that,” I said, smiling. “Say something even nicer.”
“I really like you, Midori. A lot.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Like a spring bear,” I said.
“A spring bear?” Midori looked up again. “What’s that all about? A spring bear.”
“You’re walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, “Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?’ So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other’s arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?”
“Yeah. Really nice.”
“That’s how much I like you.”
Toru and Midori - Page 276
“Why don’t I get wet?” Naoko murmured. “That one time was the only time it ever happened. The day of my twentieth birthday, that April. The night you held me in your arms. What is wrong with me?”
“It’s strictly psychological, I’m sure,” I said. “Give it time. There’s no hurry.”
“All of my problems are strictly psychological,” said Naoko. “What if I never get better? What if I can never have sex for the rest of my life? Can you keep loving me just the same? Will hands and lips always be enough for you? Or will you solve the sex problem by sleeping with other girls?”
“I’m a born optimist,” I said.
- Page 285.
I feel like this one I have to justify its inclusion. “It’s strictly psychological” stuck with me. ALL of our problems are psychological, we could be brains in jars for all we know. We ARE brains in jars if you think about it, our brain is sitting pretty inside that skull of ours. If your brain has an issue, YOU have an issue, and that’s not something you can handwave away or hope just gets better. This isn’t Naoko complaining about sex, this is Naoko complaining about her life.
I wish she got better.
“Let me just tell you this, Watanabe,” said Midori, pressing her cheek against my neck. “I’m a real, live girl, with real, live blood gushing through my veins. You’re holding me in your arms and I’m telling you that I love you. I’m ready to do anything you tell me to do. I may be a little bit mad, but I’m a good girl, and honest, and I work hard, I’m kind of cute, I have nice boobs, I’m a good cook, and my father left me a trust fund. I mean, I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else.”
- Midori, page 315
“So I said to her, “If it was so great, why didn’t you just stay with Watanabe and keep doing it every day?’ But she said, “No, Reiko, I knew it would never happen again. I knew this was something that would come to me once, and leave, and never come back. This would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I had never felt anything like it before, and I’ve never felt anything like it since.
- Naoko, Page 339