Norwegian Wood Read-Along Week 4: Can I open my eyes now?

All month, I have been striving to appreciate this book. I was the stylishly dressed egg teetering on the narrow wall of tolerance . . . but these last two chapters were the comically oversized boxing glove that delivered the fatal blow.

Me, in happier times.

I will now address my comments to Toru, because he is the reason I rage.

Toru! I made a lot of excuses for your behavior, and you made me wish I had never met you. I thought this was a turning point, when you told off Kizuki's ghost:

"Unlike you, I've chosen to live---and to live the best I know how. Sure, it was hard for you. What the hell, it's hard for me. Really hard. . . . I'm just going to keep on getting stronger. I'm going to mature. I'm going to be an adult. Because that's what I have to do. I always used to think I'd like to stay seventeen or eighteen if I could. But not anymore. I'm not a teenager anymore. I've got a sense of responsibility now. I'm not the same guy I was when we used to hang out together. I'm twenty now. And I have to pay the price to go on living." (p. 248)

Yes to all of the above . . . if only you actually meant any of it. Alas, you pledged your eternal allegiance to a woman who doesn't even love you enough to STAY ALIVE. And Midori was the most tragic casualty of that false sense of responsibility. She was your best chance at a healthy relationship. Don't you think it would have been nice to date a girl who could be trusted near a razor blade? Wouldn't you rather spend your days talking about cookies and kissing in the rain than talking about death and NOT kissing in a sanatorium? DO YOU HAVE ANY SELF-RESPECT AT ALL?

You didn't listen to me, but I hoped you would at least listen to yourself:

"I loved Midori, and I was happy that she had come back to me. The two of us could make it, that was certain. As Midori herself had said, she was a real, live girl with blood in her veins." (p. 267)

But no. Tell me, why do you say these things that sound reasoned and healthy and then DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE?

Your biggest reason for not pursuing this relationship with Midori was that you didn't know how to break the news to Naoko. Well, surprise, Naoko wasn't really thinking about you. She was practicing her rope-tying skills and picking out a tree. Then you were so upset by her death (are you sure you didn't see it coming? DUDE, WE ALL SAW IT COMING) that you left town and slept outdoors and had a pity party for a solid month. And when you chose to run away, you lost Midori again . . . because she DOES have self-respect.

After that, I thought surely you had made all the terrible decisions you could make. I mean, with only four pages left, what else could you do to provoke my wrath?

"We went inside and closed the curtains. Then, in the darkened room, Reiko and I sought out each other's bodies as if it were the most natural thing in the world for us to do." (p. 290)

I give up.

**NOTE: I made a new friend last weekend (Hi, Tommy!) who used to teach Norwegian Wood for a college course. He has posted some essay topics and discussion questions on his blog, and I plan to read them as soon as I can look at the book without screaming. They live here: http://accordprogression.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/conversation-peace-norwegian-wood-by-haruki-murakami/**

Norwegian Wood Read-Along Week 3: Return of the Midori (score by John Williams)

Midori and Toru go out for drinks (at 2 p.m.), and she lets him in on a couple of her latest fantasies. Fantasy #1: Toru undresses her tenderly, like a mother undresses a child (concerning), and then proceeds to corrupt her as she protests delicately (oh hai, rape fantasy). Fantasy #2: She and Toru are kidnapped by pirates and tied together NAKED (naturally) with only 1 hour between them and a long walk off a short plank (1 hour to live? Conveniently naked? Only one thing to do, I suppose.).

Toru's go-to response to these confessions is, "Oh, brother" . . . because that's how teenage boys talk. No. WRONG. That is NOT how teenage boys talk . . . that is how Winnie the Pooh talks.

But Toru grew on me through these three chapters. When he assumes care of Midori's terminally ill father so she can take a sanity break, it's a brief glimpse of how borderline wonderful he is when he's not thinking of himself. He helps the man pee in a jar! He spoon feeds him! He talks to him about Euripides! In short, I have no idea who he is anymore.

One thing that made me give him suspicious face was when he lied to Hatsumi (WHO ALSO KILLS HERSELF WHY HATSUMI WHY?!) about how Kizuki died. I can't think of any good reason why he would do that, unless he didn't want to elicit her pity.

Speaking of Hatsumi (WILL EVERYONE PLEASE STOP COMMITTING SUICIDE YOU'RE MAKING ME SAD), she also brings out Toru's inner tubby bear when she explains that all she wants is to get married and have kids and that Nagasawa will grow to want those things if she just waits long enough.

Maybe this is all Toru can say when a woman in his life announces something so ridiculous that a more elaborate response just won't do. In that case, wisely played, sir. Please accept this jar of honey and my humble apology.

Another sign that Toru is growing into a healthy boy and swimming away from the suicide rip tide everyone else seems to be floundering in is this uncharacteristically mature statement, written in a letter to Naoko:

"Two and a half years have gone by since it happened, and Kizuki is still seventeen years old. Not that this means my memory of him has faded. The things that his death gave rise to are still there, bright and clear, inside me, some of them even clearer than when they were new. . . . Part of what Kizuki and I shared when we were sixteen and seventeen has already vanished, and no amount of crying is going to bring that back." (p. 218)

And then Toru and Midori team up to summarize the whole depressing point of this novel (the context is porn, but isn't it always?):

"'They just keep doing the same things,' I said.
'Well, what else can they do? We all just keep doing the same things.'" (p. 225)

Everyone seems to be stuck in a vicious cycle that goes something like this: angst, sadness, tiny happy moment, depression, selfishness, suicide. Maybe Midori and Toru will be the enlightened two who break away from that permanent rain cloud.

I'm sure if we tried hard enough, we could make a pretty good case for why this novel is a thinly veiled adaptation of The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh . . . with more than one Eeyore.

Norwegian Wood Read-Along Week 2: Is crazy contagious?

Raise your hand if you think you were a little too hard on Naoko.

When she was explaining the codependent nature of her relationship with Kizuki, I started to see how his suicide could take a wrecking ball to her life. They had been inseparable since the age of 3, they had their first (and only) sexual experiences together, and their individual egos melted together to make one. But she thinks they somehow cheated the system, and that Kizuki killing himself and her mental breakdown were just the other shoe dropping.

"We didn't pay when we should have, so now the bills are due." (p. 128)

That is NOT a healthy way to look at the situation, as screwed up as it is. But that's not even all! Naoko's older sister killed herself at 17, too. And Naoko, in the sixth grade at the time, was the one who found her dead. From where I'm standing, Naoko has had more than her fair share of tragedy in her 20 years of life. I don't blame her for wanting to sneak quietly away from the world.

And that's exactly what the sanatorium is: AWAY from the world. It's practically a cult, and it doesn't seem designed to prepare patients for reentry to the outside world. Once there, I think it would be hard to ever leave. That's why Reiko has been there for 7 years (P.S. HOW MUCH DO WE LOVE REIKO?). As good as the place has been for Naoko's mental and physical health, I don't have high hopes for her recovering enough to leave. She's like a bird with a broken wing, maybe TWO broken wings.

Let's talk about Reiko. Does she remind anyone else of Midori? Her candid way of talking. The way Toru is instantly drawn to her. Her guitar playing (although Reiko's actually good at it. Poor Midori). She even calls Toru out on his strange way of talking. While Midori compared him to Humphrey Bogart, Reiko (in her infinite wisdom) sees him playing the part of Holden Caulfield. And the story she tells Toru! Lies, seduction, betrayal, a 13-year-old life-ruining lesbian. Someone give that woman a cookie and a hug.

But the way the three of them interact is eerily similar to the threesome that used to be Naoko, Kizuki, and Toru. It's almost as though Reiko has taken Toru's place in the group, Toru has taken Naoko's, and Naoko has taken Kizuki's.

"'When it's raining like this,' said Naoko, 'it feels as if we're the only ones in the world. I wish it would just keep raining so the three of us could stay together.'" (p. 161)

This doesn't bode well. In fact, it suggests that Naoko will not only NOT recover but will follow her sister and Kizuki out of the world in an equally tragic manner.

Continuing Murakami's use of light to make some sort of point, Chapter 6 seems dominated by moonlight and candlelight. This contributes to the dreamlike quality of the days Toru spends at the sanatorium. I think that may also be the reason Chapter 6 was SO VERY VERY long. By the time I got to the end of that chapter, I felt the jarring contrast Toru felt between the peaceful sanatorium and the "normal" world.

"I felt almost as if I had come to a planet where the gravity was a little different. Yes, of course, I told myself, feeling sad: I was in the outside world now." (p. 164)

At one point, Toru compares himself to Jay Gatsby and Naoko to Daisy.

"It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching it the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night." (p. 113)

I definitely see Naoko's similarities to Daisy, but I was seeing Toru as more of a Nick Carraway. Maybe he was a Nick when he was with Naoko and Kizuki, but now he is changing to a Gatsby? Anyone have some insight on this?

Either way, I see more sad times ahead. We could start betting on who will kick the bucket next.

Norwegian Wood Read-Along Week 1: Death and despair, ahoy!

Greetings from the pit of angst and depression into which Norwegian Wood has tossed me.

**SPOILERS AHEAD.**

What is UP with these kids? As far as I can tell, none of them were beaten or trapped in the cellar as children. And they couldn't have been forced to read Twilight because it didn't exist yet (ah, the good old days). And they're in COLLEGE. High school is for brooding; college is for self-discovery and sowing your wild oats.

Toru is pretty progressive. He's doing loner hipster at a time when everyone else was doing peace-loving hippy. He reads American authors no one else in Japan is reading. His favorite book is The Great Gatsby, which wouldn't be so surprising if this were set in America, but I imagine it's a bit more unusual in '60s Japan. That book is the reason he becomes friends with Nagasawa, "the one person in my world who had read Gatsby" (p. 30) and a shameless womanizer with a pretty awesome girlfriend whom he doesn't even remotely deserve. He's probably also drawn to Nagasawa because of his similarities to Kizuki, the best friend who inexplicably killed himself when Toru was in high school (more puzzling on that later) and the seeming cause of Toru's gloomy outlook on life (and death).

Toru says he went to college in Tokyo to get away from his hometown and "begin a life where I didn't know a soul" (p. 24). Maybe it worked for him for a little while, but where we come into the story, so does Naoko. She embodies all his memories of Kobe and Kizuki, and he starts spending time with her regularly. What a strange relationship they have. She and Toru should know each other well since she dated Kizuki for years.

"The three of us spent a lot of time together, but whenever Kizuki left the room, Naoko and I had trouble talking to each other. We never knew what to talk about. And in fact there was no topic of conversation that we held in common." (p. 23)

When they meet again in Tokyo, they still don't talk. They just walk . . . and walk and walk and walk. And for a long time, she doesn't even let him walk beside her. He just stares at her barrette and her ear and follows her wordlessly around the city.

On her birthday, after they've been walking all over Tokyo for a year, she finally talks . . . and talks and talks and talks, nonstop for 4 hours. But she avoids any mention of Kizuki. After she cries and they share a really awkward sexual experience, in which Toru/Murakami calls Naoko's vagina "her opening" (her OPENING?!), she shuts him out. And then she moves away without telling him. She hits it and quits it, and Toru is left to pine and write letters begging for an explanation. It's an interesting gender role reversal, but Naoko has a typical female reason for leaving: the delicate state of her mental health.

When he meets Midori (the Japanese man sitting next to me on the plane yesterday informed me that this is a common name in Japan; not just a bright green liqueur, folks!), she provides a stark contrast to Naoko. For one thing, she is afflicted with verbal diarrhea. Where Naoko was quiet and withdrawn around Toru, Midori is more than willing to share her life story AND talk about sanitary napkins. Her age shows in some of the overdramatic statements she makes ("I had a perm this summer and it was just awful. I was ready to kill myself," p. 50), but she is fairly perceptive. She has Toru figured out from the beginning and repeats some of his more ridiculous statements back to him.

"'Nobody likes being alone. I just hate to be disappointed.' You can use that line if you ever write your autobiography." (p. 51)

Also quite perceptive on her part: "You make it obvious you don't care whether people like you or not. That makes some people mad" (p. 70). (Psst, it's because he's a Japanese hipster.)

Sailor Moon: The OTHER Japanese hipster.

I hope you weren't getting your hopes up about Midori being a regular, vibrant freshman girl, because she is just as much of a broken doll as EVERY SINGLE OTHER CHARACTER. For the most part, her problems seem trivial. She's bitter about having been the only middle-class student at her all-girl, richie-rich high school. Yeah, that would be annoying, but at least her parents cared enough about her to scrape together the money for a good education. She complains that her family's bookstore isn't cool enough, which is also a nonproblem. Her mom died of cancer, which is not trivial. But she says she wasn't sad when her mom died, so I don't think that's what screwed her up. Her dad said he wished she and her sister had died instead of their mother . . . and then moved to Uruguay. See, THIS is an actual problem. Many a psychologist would say her daddy issues are the cause of her warped view of love. And what IS love according to Midori?

"I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for." (p. 76)

But one last thing. WHY did Kizuki kill himself? People generally have a reason for doing such a permanent thing, even if it's a dumb reason justified by hormones and acne. I mean, one minute, Toru and Kizuki are playing billiards "in a mood of total friendship," and the next, his parents are finding him dead in the garage. He "had left no suicide note, and had no motive that anyone could think of" (p. 24). But Naoko seems to have a lot of guilt associated with his death, which weighs so heavily on her when she is around Toru that she has to quit school and enter a sanatorium. Mystery! Intrigue!

Look there, on the horizon. I think I see GIANT THUNDERCLOUDS OF EMOTIONAL AGONY coming our way.

Norwegian Wood Read-Along: Horizons, prepare to be expanded!

This post officially begins my participation in Alice the Reading Rambo's January read-along. I am a read-along virgin. Please be gentle, Norwegian Wood.

This is also my first foray into Murakami territory. I must confess, I'm not generally excited about Asian fiction . . . probably because it really bothers me when I can't pronounce the characters' names. And I've read so much British lit that my inner narrator has a British accent by default.

I know next to nothing about Murakami, but look at this guy:

The sweater jauntily thrown about his shoulders tells me we are destined to be friends. Also, he appears to be taking his kitten shopping for an Oriental rug. Sold.

I'll be posting weekly as I journey through with the other super-awesome read-along participaters. If you haven't read Norwegian Wood yet and don't wish to have it spoilerized, avert thine eyes from posts with "Norwegian Wood" in the title. Just say no. I promise I won't cry . . . much.

Onward, brave adventurers!