Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami
1987, 386 pages
So as I just finished saying, I dove into Norwegian Wood immediately after finishing Dance Dance Dance. I picked it up on my last day in Ireland, and intended to read it on the plane, but it took three false starts to actually get interested in this book. It revolves around life and death, the past and the future, sanity and its edges. I’m sure I missed a lot in this book. It was a lot less gonzo and bizarre than Dance Dance Dance. I love Murakami’s way of describing events in convoluted ways; like a photograph with a very small focal point, most scenes are fuzzy except for one tiny spot. And like my photography skills, often the most unexpected things are the ones in focus; the smell of the trees, the feeling of the rain on the narrator’s skin, the smell of a dorm room.
I liked Dance Dance Dance more than Norwegian Wood, and really enjoyed both.
