Books to Movies: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

For those not overly familiar with Haruki Murakami, he is a well-known contemporary Japanese author—one of the best living authors in the world today. His works have probably been more influenced by western culture than other Japanese authors. Named after The Beatles' song, Norwegian Wood is his first internationally successful novel. It is also the first book I've read by Murakami and truly remarkable. When I started this book, I was honestly bored. I didn't get the story. I needed some pages before entering into it, but after that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Title: Norwegian Wood

Author: Haruki Murakami

Publisher: Vintage Books
Year Published: 2000

Format: Paperback (296 pages)
Goodreads rating: 4.02

Description:

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love. 

I don't even know where or how to begin talking about this book because it's hard to describe the story itself. I found it to be pretty melancholy and sad. Believe it or not, this book has a really dark mood to it that leaves you with an awkward feeling at times. This isn't just a straightforward love story and certainly, it's unpredictable. Murakami really knows how to build up interestingly weird characters, the dialog in this novel is so vivid and natural. This book gives me that strange feeling of loneliness. Weird, confusing, but truly sincere and makes me think of so many things...

This one is actually rather different from his other works, without the supernatural elements found in it. But wait, this is a typical Murakami that takes you into the character's mind and makes the weird seem normal. The subject of suicide is heavily featured in this book, and a bit hard to take in. From here I learned that the Japanese saw suicide as an honorable alternative to surrender. And just a fair warning, there is a lot of sex in this book.

The ending is somewhat ambiguous and very open to the readers interpretation. A happy ending, or maybe I just want it to be. This is a depressing read and Murakami isn't always easy to read - not for me anyway, still I recommend this book for beginners who want to start reading Murakami though. This book is simply too brilliant for words.

Title: Norwegian Wood (Noruwei no mori)

Release date: 2010
Running time: 2h 13m
Genre: Drama, Romance
Movie rating: Not Rated

IMDB rating: 6.4

Here's the trailer:

Once I heard it was being made into a movie, I had to see it! The movie captures the beautifully scenes described in the book. The scenery, the lighting, everything is absolutely gorgeous without being overwhelming and dramatic, but... this movie is extremely disjointed and lacks a good flow. I bet it is hard to grasp the movie, if you haven't read the book. The latter of course, is significantly more enjoyable. It provides more backstory and detail than the movie. Some parts from the book are either missing or underdeveloped. Is the movie too short that it can't provide the time to devote to each of these characters? I guess no.

However, Norwegian Wood is a drama about love, life, death and loss, which is definitely not for everyone. Not so great, but it is a good adaptation and well done. I didn't like it at first either, but I started liking it when I saw it the second time. The sex scenes are intense and erotic without being too explicit, so no worries. Worth to watch.

Favorite Quotes

“I'm confused. Really confused. And it's a lot deeper than you think.” - Naoko

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” - Nagasawa

“Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.” - Watanabe

“Being able to say you don't have any money [is the best thing about being rich]. Like, if I suggested to a classmate we should do something, she could say, 'Sorry, I don't have any money.' Which is something I could never say if the situation was reversed. If I said 'I don't have any money,' it would really mean 'I don't have any money.' It's sad. Like if a pretty girl says 'I look terrible today, I don't want to go out,' that's O.K., but if an ugly girl says the same thing people laugh at her.” - Midori

“I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me.”- Watanabe

“... even if we hadn't met that day, my life might not have been any different. We had met that day because we were supposed to meet. If we hadn't met then and there, we would have just met somewhere else sometime.” - Watanabe

I really like the way Murakami writes, very artistic painting a vision in my mind with his words. I realized all of his words, sentences, and paragraphs seem like being my favorite quotes hehehe. Last but not least, here is The Beatles' Norwegian Wood. Enjoy!

More Info:

• Norwegian Wood (Book / 1987) - Goodreads
• Norwegian Wood (Movie / 2010) - IMDB