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Murakami divides his novel into two. There is the past and death. Then there is future and life. What road do you take?

Seems like an easy question to answer. But what happens when you are in love with the past? And what happens when you so desperately want to save that past from such a death? Life becomes complicated and the prospect of the future feels like a brutal betrayal of one who is desperately clinging to you. You are her anchor; her only connection with reality. And you love her. How can you ever walk away? Life is fickle, though true love isn’t. Sometimes we have to do the hard thing and let go even if it kills us.

"The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living."

Such words are easier said than put into practice. Sometimes the dead carry so much of ourselves that living without them is not quite living anymore. Toru lost his best friend when he was seventeen. He killed himself. We never find out why, but I have my own ideas about what and who caused it. He carries on, feeling empty. He falls in love with his dead friend’s girlfriend Naoko but she has her own problems. They maintain a friendship for a year, and then she institutionalises herself because she simply cannot cope with life in the wake of her old boyfriend’s death. He was her soulmate and now she is rudderless in a sea of uncertainty.

Anyone who has read a Murakami will know the importance of music in his storytelling. These lyrics say more than I ever could about the novel. Read them, hear them and feel them.

Cue the music:

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) by the Beatles.

I once had a girl
Or should I say
She once had me

She showed me her room
Isn't it good
Norwegian wood

She asked me to stay
And she told me to sit anywhere
So I looked around
And I noticed there wasn't a chair

I sat on a rug
Biding my time
Drinking her wine

We talked until two
And then she said
"It's time for bed"

She told me she worked in the morning
And started to laugh
I told her I didn't
And crawled off to sleep in the bath

And when I awoke
I was alone
This bird had flown

So I lit a fire
Isn't it good
Norwegian wood

I want to interpret them and put them in the context of the novel and explain what they mean, but to do so would be to ruin it all for you. If you have read the book read through the lyrics and ponder the actions Naoko takes towards the end of the story, what she does and why she does it seemed a little selfish to me at first. But the lyrics tell the truth. Perspective is everything and we never had the perspective in the novel that would have spoken the truth.

Norwegian Wood is a novel that feels like it should never have ended. It is the sort of book that carries you away into the lives of the characters and should carry on as long as they continue to live. With suicide such a strong theme through the novel, no less than three major characters commit it, I was surprised the ending was not more of a universal ending so to speak. The power of the writing resides in his ability to tangle you up within the story. Murakami’s characters here feel so terribly, tragically, real. They are some of the most human I’ve ever encountered on a page.

It all felt so desperately unresolved towards the end of the story. But isn’t that life? How often do we truly resolve our daemons and feel satisfied with how things went? Rarely. Norwegian Wood is a dangerous novel because it has a certain sense of universal appeal; it has the ability to speak to may a reader as they compare their own situation to that depicted here. Sure, it’s likely less dramatic but the need to move on being weighed against a past that hangs over us, whatever that past may be, is a dilemma most of us will face.

But the real question is did I enjoy it and would I recommend it?

I would recommend it, but I certainly didn’t love it. There’s little to love here, but there is also little to hate. What Murakami delivers is a sprawling peak into the lives of a bunch of severely damaged youths coping with the realities of what emptiness means. Take from it what you will. A warning though, it may hurt.

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