Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

I thought I knew what kind of book to expect from Haruki Murakami, having read and loved his novels The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and 1Q84. I anticipated a fanciful and surrealistic story combined with a healthy dose of references to Western music and popular culture. The Western-culture references are present, but the plot is a straight-forward tale of the coming-of-age of a young Japanese student as he confronts isolation, love, guilt, the longing for human warmth, and death.

This is a much more "Japanese" book than the others of Murakami I have read, particularly in the tone and in the attitudes of the characters. In many ways, it is like a very Japanese version of Catcher in the Rye, with the differences being informed by the two differing ways the two cultures confront common problems. The tone is one of wistfulness and vague melancholy, much similar to that portrayed in many Japanese paintings and haiku poetry.

The title comes from the song by the Beatles, which one of the characters in the novel plays for her friends. Even though the Beatles could be considered the pinnacle of Western music, the lyrics and the sound do seem to reflect a very Japanese sensibility, and the line "This bird had flown" could very well be the theme of the novel.

I found this to be a very lovely and haunting novel. It vaulted Murakami to super-stardom in Japan. But it is not a typical Murakami novel at all.