In my journey to become more literate, I just finished reading my fourth book since college, Norwegian Wood. Shamefully, this was the first Murakami novel I read. What kind of Japanese person am I? A terrible one, apparently.
Having never read any of his other works, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had heard that some of his work was “postmodern” in some way, but this story didn’t seem to have much of that. It’s about a man’s memories of his college days, and his romances with two very different women. There’s quite a bit of graphic sex descriptions in this book. I loved them. I seem to get off on textual descriptions of carnal acts. Well, I’d much rather see them, of course, but the descriptions were sufficiently hot.
Despite the rampant sex that made me jealous that I didn’t partake in nearly as much of it during college, the book is heartbreakingly sad. I won’t spoil anything, but the body count in this love story is surprisingly high. Perhaps that’s why there’s so much sex, as a contrast to the depressing deaths that occur throughout the book. In general, the story moves along at a good pace, and I kept wanting to know what happens to Toru, the narrator, and his evolving relationships with the women in his life. I definitely enjoyed this book, although it was very sad in some parts.
One thing that I found surprising, though, was that the book was removed from a high school reading list, not because of the explicit sex the narrator has with multiple women, but because of the one lesbian sex scene in the whole book. I find it shocking that these parents chose to focus on that one scene, but they said nothing of the male character’s liaisons with over half a dozen women. It just goes to show you, homophobia is still rampant in this country, and it’s denying high school kids the experience of reading quality literature. What a shame.