norwegian wood by haruki murakami

“I want you to always remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?”

The first time I read Norwegian Wood was on a Greyhound bus going from Ottawa to Montreal. I had started reading it on my e-reader, until halfway through I realized that the copy I was reading was missing a bunch of pages and the story was not following. The book had totally and completely sucked me in and there was no way I could stop reading, so I immediately located a Chapters. Being in a predominantly francophone city, the giant bookstore we were in had only one copy of Norwegian Wood. I never buy books with movie covers on them, but I was so desperate to get back into the story that I purchased the copy.

I remember sitting on the grass in front of a small church on St. Catherine street in Montreal becoming completely encompassed by this novel. By feeling like I was every single of the characters, and my heart breaking slowly but surely. There is nothing I love more than feeling like I am a part of a book, and nothing else exists. That I am the characters, and this is not somebody telling me a story; but that it is my life and my reality. 

I finished the book the next day. At the end, the book had become such a part of me that I sobbed when reading the last chapter and continued crying once I was finished. That is the beauty of books—they become such a part of you. I have since purchased another copy so that the original cover edition is in my collection, and passed along my original copy. My second time reading it was just a couple weeks ago, and my feelings towards the novel and the characters have only grown stronger.

Norwegian Wood can be classified as a coming-of-age story and was incredibly popular in Japan when it was first published. Reviews have called it a “Japanese Catcher in the Rye”—while I understand the comparison, the two novels are two entirely different worlds for me. Norwegian Wood is told in the eyes of Toru, who shares with us his story of love and loss. I quite honestly cannot say more about this novel, and will let you read the plot synopsis via Amazon. All I can say is that this book is one that will stay in my heart. 

-g