Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Tokio blues (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

marjoleinvanderspoel's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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

3.0

Why is this man (Murakami) obsessed with periods??

Content Warnings

stoneofexile's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.0

Content Warnings

balinmoreno's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

jessiemcg's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

Bizarre, brilliant, tragic and unique. A fantastically written book but often times very literal. Very very very good (I didn’t realise just quite how heavy going this book is until I did the trigger warnings)

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