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Loading... Norwegian Wood (original 1987; edition 2000)by Haruki Murakami (Author), Jay Rubin (Translator)
Work InformationNorwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (1987)
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It's hard for me to say anything specific about this book, except that I associated with a lot of it and enjoyed the style. Perhaps the only thing I disliked was the incredible number of suicidal characters. ( ) This is my first reading of an Haruki Murakami book. I took it off the bookshelf because I was going to Kyoto, his birthplace, thinking it might give me some insight into what it was to be Japanese. I'm not sure if has but some of the details probably make more sense now that I've been there. Speaking of details, it took me half the book to get used to (and enjoy) the minute levels of quotidian detail. But all the seeming irrelevant observation and inconsequential dialogue work towards a very leisurely pace and give plenty of space for nuanced reflection. The narrative is presented as a reflective exercise in memory prompted by hearing the Beatles eponymous song Norwegian Wood, I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.... There a many musical references. I see (in Goodreads) that there are many female readers who object to his portrayal of women and for this reason object to the book. In some respects (by today's standards) they have a point, but the narrative is set in 1969, and it's entirely appropriate that such a directionless, flâneur-like, character as Watanabe speaks and thinks the way he does. I was interested to see if there would be deus ex machina as Murakami laid the ground for it, but in the end there wasn't one. This is a gentle book about love and loss and while at first I gave it 3 stars, on closing I've given it 4 because it kept me engaged to the end. I was familiar with and love the quote from this book: "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." So I already knew Haruki Murakami could turn a phrase. I felt some resistance to Toru Watanabe's story in the early chapters of the book, but once I was caught in the web of the story of these many damaged people in his life, and his relative stoicism, his growth through confronting loss and grief, I was completely invested. Murakami is a masterful writer, creator of multiple complex and dimensional characters, and that quote above was only one of several I made note of. But I was also struck by how he used time travel -- not the supernatural kind, but simply having access to the narrator's thoughts or activities at different times in his life as a way to weave the pieces of the story tighter toward its resolution. First five star review I have given in a while. I don’t see what all the hype around this book is, like yeah I guess it’s kinda sad and explores loss and sexuality but like I wasn’t really into all that. It was ok and picked up around the end but not by much. Overall I feel like there are better books out there that I wouldn’t really recommend reading this one, but also I haven’t read much of the authors other works.
Menschen wie Toru Watanabe trifft man in allen Büchern von Haruki Murakami. Es sind Singles, die in ihren Apartments sitzen und sich alte Filme anschauen, die Miles Davis hören und Scotch dazu trinken. Das Schicksal hat Spuren in ihnen hinterlassen, so wie in Toru Watanabe, der mit Naoko die einzige wirkliche Liebe seines Lebens verloren hat. Aber diese Spuren sind wie Kratzer auf einer Schallplatte. Sie kehren regelmäßig wieder und jedes Mal wieder erschrickt man - auch wenn sich bereits nicht mehr so genau erinnern kann, bei welcher Gelegenheit man die Nadel einmal zu unvorsichtig aufgesetzt hat. Belongs to Publisher SeriesContainsHas the adaptation
"Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman."--Back cover. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)895.635Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Japanese Japanese fiction 1945–2000LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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