comparisons.

[spiderpig]

Some people are puzzled over why Norwegian Wood is my favourite Murakami book when Kafka on the Shore and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are so much more effective as books as whole. Noruwei no Mori is much too bland, too stagnant, when compared to the vivacious prose of the other two.

Yet it is in Norwegian Wood that I first truly enjoyed Murakami's gift for connecting words with a string. I had already read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles and Dance, Dance, Dance before I read Norwegian Wood and while those books were a delightful read in themselves, as a whole book, they didn't make me shiver inside. Norwegian Wood was the first book that did that.

"'Why?'!" she screamed. "Are you crazy? You know the English subjunctive, you understand trigonometry, you can read Marx, and you don't know the answer to something as simple as that? Why do you even have to ask? Why do you have to make a girl say something like this? I like you more than I like him, that's all. I wish I had fallen in love with somebody a little more handsome, of course. But I didn't. I fell in love with you!"

-Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Pierces through you don't you think?

'Waiting for the perfect love?'

'No, even I know betterthan that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, sayI tell you I want to eat strawberry shortbread. And you stop everythingyou're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out ofbreath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortbreadout to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out of thewindow. That's what I'm looking for.'

'I'm not sure that has anything to do with love,' I say with some amazement.

'It does,' she said. 'You just don't know it. There are times in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important.'

'Things like throwing strawberry shortbread out of the window?'

'Exactly.And when I do that I want the man to apologize to me. 'What a fool I'vebeen, Midori! I should have known that you would lose your desire forstrawberry shortbread. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity as apiece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I'll go out and buy yousomething else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?'

'So then what?'

'So then I'd give him all the love he deserves for what he's done.'

'Sounds crazy to me.'

'Well,to me that's what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though.'Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. 'For a certainkind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. Fromsomething like that or it doesn't begin at all.'

Norwegian Wood; Haruki Murakami.

Maybe it's because I'm a bland and boring person that this bland and comparatively boring book appeals to me. I mean frankly speaking, there isn't much of a traditional plot in this novel. It's more of an expository novel, to me. It explores the loose form of a story it has, using its characters more as propelling points rather than plot devices. The characters become stories within a story. To me, that's what's unique and compelling about this book.

And again, I'm a idealistic romantic and the whole tortured web of Toru, Naoko, Midori and Kizuki just renders something in me. Academic literature tries to concretize and materialise things too much. Sometimes a feeling is just a feeling and can't be described as anything else. When you get an unclassified feeling from reading, the last thing you want to do is to bind it down to the material world by forcing upon it descriptors that don't fit at all. Does the book really make you sad? Is that melancholy you're really feeling? Somethings are usually best left vague, otherwise the inherent mystery and joy of reading would be sucked out dry.

Returning back to the whole romantic idealist nature of the book. I admit, I'm looking for love. I don't know what kind of love I'm looking for, but I'm looking for something to put my heart and soul into, be it into a career, a person or even inanimate objects like food. I want to devote myself wholly to something and the conflicts presented in Norwegian Wood somehow speak to me. I like the incredulous nature of it.


EDIT:

Should I get a totally brand new iPod, or get a refurbished one?

EDIT:

Haha. I'm looking through old photos and photographs of my parents' trip around Europe. I knew that they had a huge trip when I was a baby but I didn't know that they really went around the whole of Europe! Up til now I only believed that they had gone to England, Germany and some other small places. Turns out they also went to Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Monaco, France... WTF!!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

(Here from a flist of an flist)

That long passage was just wonderful. I just checked my local library catalog looking for Norwegian Wood, but we don't have it. You've inspired me to look for it though :) It sounds lovely.

[spiderpig.livejournal.com]

Hullo there! :D It's really a good book to read, though I'm not sure if many people will actually like it. I read it in my school's library once and it made me buy a copy to read again. For me, it was that inspiring. Glad to see that you're interested in it! :D

[spirylstatic.livejournal.com]

You've made me want to read the book too! And wah, your parents are such travellers. I'm simply dying to visit every one of the above-mentioned places, especially manchester (:D)

[spiderpig.livejournal.com]

I can lend you the book once my classmate returns it to me!

yeah! It kinda shocked me that they've really been to so many places...