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Hand of fate ordeals review8/14/2023 ![]() ![]() They take long walks through the city on Sundays, not talking much at first and being slightly awkward with one another, but soon their relationship develops into a comfortable one and strange feelings start arising in Toru, making him see Naoko as perhaps more than just a friend. ![]() Toru and Naoko thus develop a friendly symbiotic relationship, supporting each other while they both silently try to fight off their inner demons. The only other person who seems to understand him and who Toru feels comfortable with is Naoko, Kizuki’s former girlfriend and childhood friend, who also moved to Tokyo to enroll in university, although in her case, her move was primarily motivated by her desire to escape the painful memories of her older sister and Kizuki’s suicides back home. He feels more like a character from whom a part of his life was robbed due to the suicide of his friend, and he’s now struggling to fill in the void he was left with, so that he can move on with his life (or find his own ‘Springtime’, as Toru himself alludes to in the novel). He’s not intrinsically prone to depression though, and reading the story you’ll probably figure out why. Through it all though, he feels extremely lonely and detached from life and society, making very few acquaintances, let alone friends, in his first months in Tokyo. The rest of the story is therefore spent circa two decades prior, during the end of the 1960s, beginning of the 1970s, as Toru moves to Tokyo to enroll in university, not long after his best (and only) friend Kizuki unexpectedly committed suicide at the age of seventeen.ĭeeply disturbed by the event, yet not really realizing the full extent of the damage it has caused him, Toru tries to lead a ‘normal’ life, attending classes on a daily basis, working part time at a music store and trying to adjust himself to the daily occurrences and odd characters of the students’ dormitory where he’s staying at. The song is very closely linked to the most meaningful character from Toru’s past, hence the reaction.ĭisturbed by the power of the memories flooding him, Toru decides to write them down in a book, in an attempt to fully understand them. Whilst getting ready to leave his ride, Toru hears a version of the famous The Beatles’ song through the airplane speakers and the memories of his troubled young adult past suddenly hit him full on.ĭon’t frown upon the odd occurrence though. That being said, it should be mentioned that Norwegian Wood actually predates the other two books, so in fairness, I suppose I should direct my complains to the latter, but I can’t help it, seeing as I read them first and at the time the ‘Murakami magic’ factor was still high with me.īack to Norwegian Wood though… The story starts with 37 year-old Toru Watanabe arriving at Hamburg airport by plane. And that kind of bugged me, because I really wanted to have liked Norwegian Wood! Arghhhhhh. Yes, there is a freaking cat in Norwegian Wood too! Albeit (and in fairness) with no role in the plotline this time around.Īs I read NorwegianWood, I kept getting reminded of elements already present in South of the Border, West of the Sun and in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which made my reading experience a lot less enjoyable than what I had hoped for. There are a lot of music references in the book (hey, Norwegian Wood is the name of a The Beatles song!), a lot of meditative walks through the city and the woods, the occasional trip to the pool, the revealing tragic story-within-the-story, courtesy of a side character, and the almost compulsory appearance of a feline pet. He struggles to understand and make sense of the ordeals he went through at the time, while desperately trying to commit to memory the moments he spent with the people who, through one way or another, made him the person he is at present. ![]() I would most likely have been blown away by its quiet subtleness, by its many symbolic possibilities, by its sensuality, or perhaps by its heartbreaking portrayal of a love destined for tragedy, but having read a few other Murakami novels so far, I definitely recognize a repetitive formula that takes away a bit of the magic in reading this author’s work.Īs in many of his other novels, the main character of Norwegian Wood, Toru Watanabe, is a man reminiscing upon his younger self and upon a period of his life when he felt lonely, lost, and frankly, absent from life. I’m convinced that if this had been my first Murakami read, the rating I would have given it would have been substantially higher. ![]() They’re nothing we haven’t seen before in his work really. On one hand, I think this is one of Murakami’s best attempts at diving into and exploring the human subconscious, but on the other hand, I honestly feel as though the formula and characters he used to tell the story lacked originality. ![]()
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