Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Norwegian Wood

Reread this for a book club. I had forgotten what it was about. I recently read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, a surreal and fun fantasy, and expected something similar. Wrong. I had an overwhelming sense of foreboding while reading Norwegian Wood and couldn't quite figure out why until I got to the Reiko part.

Good bits: This book is beautifully written. I always hear people complaining that Murakami writes women terribly and I actually disagree with that in this case. The women in this book feel like people, and are like-able people, even filtered through the eyes of the narrator Watanabe and through the romanticized distance of the memories he is recounting. The story really beautifully demonstrates how a young person can focus on fixing the suffering of others in order to avoid thinking about their own grief. It shows how a typically male-leaning stoic handling emotions can fail. It has incredibly vivid imagery and the aesthetic of Murakami's stories is always really engrossing.

Bad bits: Unfortunately, all of this is overshadowed by the

child rape committed by Reiko.

Rereading this now as an adult with an english degree and I think a generally good understanding of how to read fiction that has traumatic themes...Murakami does not handle the

child rape

well. Like Lolita handles this well and very firmly establishes the unreliability of its narrator. Norwegian Wood does not. Reiko's story is presented with her as the 31-year-old victim

of a 13 year old girl who is somehow a sex predator

. Her story is told sympathetically, and one could argue this is because of either a) Watanabe being 20 years old and naive or b) Watanabe viewing things through the rosy and kind lens of nostalgia. I genuinely don't believe there is enough textual evidence to argue for either of these explanations though. We're left with this random recounting from a

sexual predator about how it wasn't her fault

Watanabe then goes on to sleep with Reiko, who is twice his age, which one must imagine can't do his mental health any good, and yet the narrative presents their sexual experience together as freeing and fun.

Is the takeaway here that Watanabe, even 20 years on from these events, is still unwell and just sort of stuck as a damaged person because he never really came to terms with any of the shit that happened to him? I guess it is, which really bums me out. The handling of all this is very vibesy and jumbled for something attempting to tackle this subject matter. I would be okay with a story this viscerally upsetting if the plot weren't so clumsy and directionless.

Content Warnings

sinfell's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s extremely difficult to understate how well this book approaches topics of grief and death, as well as how well Murakami grounds each character to reality, so much so that I feel as though I have not connected so much with another main character as I have with Toru. While this book, much like Murakami, does have dated and problematic cultural views, I think the sheer quality alone is enough to excuse it, if only to keep reading until completion.
I have read several of Murakami’s stories, but I feel his more realistic works have their own sort of surrealism to it that any fantastical plot points feels completely unnecessary.
Plus Midori is in this book, so that should be reason enough to give it 5 stars.

Content Warnings

janainthebooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I understand it is the perspective of a 19 year old boy but the way women are viewed and described in this book is extremely superficial, overtly sexual and plane boring. This one sided and objectifying way of storytelling takes away from the depth of the story and the of the characters. The story itself is rather slow paced and at times hard to get through, but gets more interesting in the last third. All in all its an intriguing plot and some passages are beautifully poetic, but it could've been executed better.

Content Warnings

thebookwasb3tter's review against another edition

Go to review page

It was maddeningly slow, I found the main character to be awful and self absorbed, the women were written as sex caricatures, and the dialogue made me cringe.

Content Warnings

mmari's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

Content Warnings

vermiglio's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

en0mad's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

katanarin's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Like always Murakamis style of writing is very delicate. The plot is interesting, good pacing, poetic descriptions.
The plot and fantasy aspect differs to other Murakami books, this book is a romance novel and got nothing surreal to it.
There is like always one thing that annoys me about this book or about Murakami in general.
The way he writes woman lol
Again - every woman is at one point in this book just an sexual lust-object for the protagonist or another male. In Kafka on the shore it somehow made sense to me but in this book it seemed really unnecessary and at some point it was so annoying that it really ruined the moment. It's just sad :,)

Content Warnings

More...