Cannonball Read 3 - Review #10 - Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

I have never read any of Murakami's books, and probably wouldn't have, as there are always too many books to read. However, it is the April selection for my book club, so Murakami it was. Set in the late 1960s in Tokyo, the book is told from the perspective of Toru Watanabe, who is looking back on his days as a college student and the intense relationships he had then. He is drawn to Naoko, a severely depressed friend from his high-school days who was childhood sweethearts with his best friend Kizuki, who committed suicide when they were seventeen. The shared grief over Kizuki draws Toru and Naoko together, and Toru struggles to help Naoko while she struggles with her mental illness. Toru is also drawn to Midori, a spirited young woman he meets in one of his classes, and he tries to navigate these intense relationships and do the right thing while dealing with his own pain and detachment from the rest of his carefee classmates. The characters are all wonderful. There are no "normal" people that Toru is friends with. Everyone from his roommate to his girlfriend all have unique quirks and serious problems, but while Toru acknowledges them, he does not make a big fuss of how strange they are. He calmly loves and understands the troubled people in his life, probably because his own pain makes him more aware and sensitive to that of others, a feeling I can relate to. The novel explores grief, mental illness, relationships, love, and the pain of growing up in a calm and deep way, and no one is a cliche or caricature. We follow the lives of a few deeply flawed people in Toru's life as he tries to love them. Except for many references to music and books from the era, the novel is rather timeless. It's a beautiful story of imperfect people trying their best to be happy, or peaceful, or alive.