The Japanese author of "Kafka on the Shore", "Sputnik Sweetheart", and "A Wild Sheep Chase" offers a coming-of-age tale and the impossible romance of Toru and Naoko.

Murakami’s Style

Japanese author Haruki Murakami is famous as the author of beautifully absurd stories. In his world, men can talk to cats (Kafka on the Shore), sheep might run the world (A Wild Sheep Chase), and a human data processing machine can serve as narrator (Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World). Murakami makes fictions that are at once erudite and hip by blending high literature, fantasy, and pop culture.

Plot of Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood is a coming of age story. Toru, the middle-aged narrator, hears the famous Beatles’ song on an airplane and is plunged into memories of his life as a university student in Tokyo during the late 60’s and early 70’s.

Innocent, introverted, and intellectual, Toru enters adulthood by experiencing the generation of rock music and free love in Japan. He falls in love for the first time with Naoko, the girlfriend of his only friend. Toru’s friend commits suicide, and Toru and Naoko begin a troubled relationship.

Naoko is beautiful, quiet, and emotionally damaged. Toru can never see what goes on inside her head and does not know the extent of her troubles. Emotionally and sexually repressed, Naoko retreats further and further into herself, eventually moving to a mental retreat where she ends her own life.

Meanwhile, Toru has begun a friendship with Midori. Outgoing, curious, and blatantly sexual, Midori is Naoko’s opposite. Naoko’s suicide forces Toru to understand that his first love was never possible. By choosing to pursue a relationship with Midori, Toru leaves his innocence behind and begins life in the real world.

Style of Norwegian Wood

In the spectrum of Murakami’s writing, Norwegian Wood is the exception to the rule; it is pure realism.

The story takes readers back to places and times that the author really experienced. This is evident in the perfectly chosen details, using simple language and sensory elements to create a clear image of the period.

Despite the novel’s realistic plot, elements of the author’s fantastic style are evident. According to Murakami, “Writing a story is like playing out your dreams while you are awake. It’s not about being inspired by your dreams, but about consciously manipulating the unconscious and creating your own dream.” (2001 Interview with Murakami)

While this quote may seem more appropriate to Murakami’s paranormal plot lines, it also describes Norwegian Wood. Norwegian Wood is about the way that memories and dreams shape our reality, and the way we reshape our memories simply by the process of remembering.

The reader is reminded throughout the book that the story in front of them is filtered through the memory of a man looking back on his life. It is an effort to capture an era on paper before it slips away from him. Sometimes the narrator’s memory is faulty; for instance, the first flashback is a detailed description of a sunny field and a conversation between Toru and Naoko, but the older Toru cannot recall Naoko’s face.

Nostalgia is threaded throughout the novel so that it feels like a dreamland. Because Toru idealizes his youth, readers can never be certain of what is real and what is hyperreal.

Murakami’s fantastic novels often include symbolic characters. He says, “Women serve as mediums in my stories. They guide us to dreamlike things, or to the other world.” (2001 Interview with Murakami)

This element of his fantasy novels is also present in Norwegian Wood. The major female characters become almost symbolic. Introverted, mysterious Naoko is a romantic figure to Toru, idealized as his first love. Midori is rooted in the physical world and represents a more realistic kind of love.

Norwegian Wood in Murakami’s Career

Prior to the publishing of Norwegian Wood, Murakami had been moderately successful as a writer. According to the 2001 interview recorded on the author’s website, none of his early books sold more than 100,000 copies. Norwegian Wood sold millions of copies, rocketing Murakami to literary superstardom, both in Japan and abroad.

Murakami credits the novel’s popularity to its highly realistic narrative. However, this success was followed by more novels that experimented with reality and narrative structure, such as The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. His work continued to be a great success.

A bit more information about Murakami's style can be found on suite101 in the article, Best Mystery Books for Christmas.

Murakami, Haruki. Norwegian Wood. London: Vintage Books; 2003. ISBN 9780099448823.