ŷ������

I don't have many meaningful things to say about Norwegian Wood. First, a disclaimer. This is, by no means, a romance book - no offence meant. I cannot suffer to attach such a tacky word on this book. Oh, what do I know, it IS a romance book. But it is laterally more than that.

Like Dickens, Murakami fuels his potboiler with death of the innocent. Each one is offing herself. That's right. What really matters is the subtext. In all superficial opinion, Watanabe is having a normal college life. But though the actions of his peers unravel with robotic neatness, in the background there's chaos going on.

Watanabe's best bud, Nagasawa, plays the devil's advocate. Showing himself as an evil guy, which he partially is, he prompts and tempts and gauges. He teases with Watanabe's rhythm of orderliness.But stuff was happening before they met. The one humanitarian thing that Watanabe does, in the hospital, attending upon Midori's dad, is hefty in its purity. That's what lacks in classical literature, ambivalent people who have their own set of morals. People who still are heroes.

There is the question of death lingering throughout the book. Near the end I was fed up with these upheavals. But then the hero himself put him in purgatorial madness. The sex in the book doesn't appear obscene at all. It feels natural. The people who don't feel real, such as Midori, are still full of a palette of colours. She is a healthy caricature. And she does her job of making me laugh. In a way Midori is the most generous girl of the bunch.

Murakami had always been a closed door for me. But if his other work is like this one, then I need a second crack at one of his other books. I tried hard not to let spoilers show, but man has Murakami got the talent to keep churning interesting words. The best thing is that few people notice that beneath this seamless flow of words, lie a lot of twists. Twists are what make art great. And this was great art. It contains lots of films, literature, the Beatles' music, Bach, Mozart. And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.

Thanks to my cyber friend, Manju, to recommend this book to me.