I've finally finished Norwegian Wood.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO PLAN TO READ IT (Brenda):


I liked this book, it was a good read.  Murakami has a way with making mundane details in life seem much more exciting and worthwhile.  It was way more dialogue heavy than I had expected.  He often left out details on how the character was expressing the dialogue, so I was confused as to how I should be feeling. But, I think this is one of strengths as well.  The ambiguity of the expression leaves room for the reader to interpret it with their own imagination.  Also, I know that his works are translated from Japanese, so it makes me wonder how the book was in its in original language because it's common for translations to be misunderstood. Too bad I can't speak Japanese.

It's very interesting because as I was reading, I found that the protagonist, Toru, to be pretty boring. His character seemed to remain stagnant for most of the book. But then, BOOM. In the last fifth of the book, we finally get to see his sorrow, his longing, his humanness.  There were many surprising and crazy things happening at the end.

I loved how real the book was in regards to relationships. I loved how we could see his inner turmoil and his brokenness.  The ending was realistic, and I liked how Murakami didn't make it so Naoko lives and all of a sudden overcomes her sickness, because in reality, relationships don't really work like that. 

This book has taught me a lot about relationships, and I have even more questions about how humans interact with one another. When Toru was saying that he couldn't turn his back on Naoko, I think about how I would react in that situation.  I think about what would be the best way to go about this. I came to the conclusion that I needed to be selfish. When someone in the relationship (platonic/romantic) becomes self-destructive and addicted to harmful ways, space is needed and ties must be broken. If Toru were to continue pursing Naoko in her sickness, he would be destroyed as well. There are just some things we can't fix. When we're in any kind of relationship, it's important to know where your limits are. This leads me to this question: Does unconditional love really exist? When you're in a relationship, you're supposed to be selfless (e.g. Toru tried so hard to wait for Naoko. "I can't leave her behind").  But if the other is self-destructive in ways that is out of your capacity to handle, you have to be selfish. If you in their life is distracting, you must leave. So is this selfish? Is this selfless? I'm having a really hard time trying to figure it out.

Sorry this post is disorganized. This book gives me a lot of feelings. Almost cried in the cafe today, haha.

-AA

P.S. wtf, sex with Reiko was really random to me. But okay haha