Norwegian Wood

The sex that follows a conversation, the bottle of whiskey that blends people in, the strolls that brings forth joy, the dull lectures that calls for substitution, the warmth in the orgasm from running eyes through letters, the train rides with the wetness of rationed words, the lost pieces of needless advice, the kettle-poured coffee reminding places, the dandelions of love, the synchronization of weather and temperament, the pleasure in seeking pain, the little talks that leads nowhere, the comfort of loneliness, the adventures with lovers, the death of a lost friend, the leaving of a lost love, the excitement of a restored life; and the music that unites everything, everyone, all at once.

The memories, if not every, comes flushing in, when The Beatles’ born Norwegian Wood enters one of many sensory perceptions of Toru Watanabe, the recipient of a long-lasting feeling of synesthesia.

If anyone asks this question of how your life could turn, say, over the course of two years; I would explain its neat existence in two self-contradicting ways, the one directed by our plans and the other led by our fate, more precisely the things that frame those courses of events. And people stumble upon others, primarily tagged as an acquaintance, which then silently demands a gentle steer towards uncorking the barrel to open up the vastness in serendipity, call it the condom that holds a blizzard of what’s untold.

I’ll be writing the rest by laying an emphasis on our narrator and his journey of life in the late 1960s Tokyo and how it sheds light on, or sucks life off, the characters of the novel.

Swaying winter trees…

There lies hidden a myriad instances where Murakami points out the subtlety in the way people are forced to express emotions. The mind desires to speak certain things, but is bound by the fearful experiences of the past or the precariousness in the coming. Naoko, an embodiment solely understood by the still seventeen Kizuki and not-so-old version of Watanabe.

In the beginning of the story, Toru & Naoko talks about a field well, which as verbally illustrated by Naoko is a dark circle in the middle of the woods where people have fallen to death. As the magic of time swept off the living anticipation in her boyfriend, the consequent alteration in the route of Naoko’s actions grew vigorously invasive that the reality of life appeared far from the reach of realization. What happens when you don’t trust yourself ? Well, your friendship with fear begins to take shape. To intercept this, she arrives at the decision to get herself transferred to Ami Hostel, the sanatorium, to uplift the mangled minds.

Two human bodies intertwine and writhe when the chemical belt that holds together millions of pleasure fragments explodes to climax. The love life of Naoko was the silhouette of a toss coin, spinning in confusion about where to settle. Kizuki lived his afterlife within her, and Toru owned the rainy soil in one corner of her heart. After several of those breakdowns, there approaches a question of choice, which I felt, grappling in all of her. Naoko was just in her final decision, with Toru & Reiko in consideration. Isn’t it the perfect way to leave a place that was not just a place ?

Dewing the dried up leaves…

The Sunday habit of splashing feelings on paper became consistent and reading those words of hopeful enquiry made Reiko Ishida more than benefited. Everyone likes to be asked about, on how their day went or things that made them happy or just about the taste of their regular coffee, because pleasure derived from little things almost never fails to put up a glow on faces, though it’s transient. The only shoulder Naoko could use to relax whilst at the institution caged to Ishida, the guitarist who played a monumental role in pacifying her in every wild episode of sadness tailed by outburst.

Since the place warrants for voluntary therapy, inmates are unrestricted in their daily activities, supplemented with work tasks to fight doldrums. Upsetting experiences in life tend to weigh less when lending ears comes as catalysts. Toru’s surfacing at the establishment was a huge consolation for Naoko’s playmate. The midnight ambles, the refreshing zephyrs, the trilling sound of the nocturnal, the talking trees, the beaming moon, the tales of enigmatic struggle for sanity, steaming venereal occurrences and family bond filled up the entirety of the concoction of Reiko as a person.

As the petal begins to fade…

What is love to you, if not tangible? Toru & Midori, the asymmetric remains of a broken record, endured to believe that the game of life contained rules; more of the serious, unbreakable kind. If there is something that demands courage to accomplish, Toru would point towards her favorite lover. The rarity in such a character is equivalent to the Neelakurinji plant, which blooms once in every twelve years. Survived by a little sister, there couldn’t be more plight that was left for her to suffer for. Being Toru’s daredevil and part-time lover, the time drawn by their lives as a destined couple, paved the way for a stronger relationship, with dubiety in togetherness, inadvertently waiting at one end.

Whenever the male protagonist of the story looks at her limpid eyes amidst their saunter; he finds himself drowning in that lake where he gets to watch what he wants to see; the chance reflection of colors of the day but the gleaming ones, the tender shift in sight from restaurants, the crowd inside, the fulgent lights, to land in his lingering, flaming lips, the swirl of air that directs her little finger to smooth out his index, and the return to his senses with the joy of reveling in that stream, the river of Midori.

To understand is one thing and to process what’s understood is a wholly different thing. She was difficult to comprehend and easy to converse with, at least for Watanabe. Does it feel good to strip oneself off of all the drama of clothing and turn the dead a voyeur of an art ? What shall the feeling of pain and pleasure combined be called as ? And whilst all that’s said ensued in her, the only answer to why a part of Toru hung on to her, could be capped at her nature of innocence or immaturity or an innate wildness, which was everything that aggregated Midori or more distinctly the Midori to Toru.

Lonely are the people in the woods…

If we travel with our self in search of answers to why we exist, there survives some people whom we could look up to and some others who survived to rest in tranquility long before our trip.

Standing on the premises of the Japanese zelkova, the heat of the morning sun was unkind enough to parch her body to redden, with correspondence to time. The tree was ready to offer its canopy to shade and protect her from the burning man. But the loyalty of Hatsumi made her an unsuitable partner for the carefree Nagasawa, who lived in solipsism.

The quality of order and system in Toru’s life remained as his sole souvenir of Storm Trooper.

What are the living beings, if not seasons ? How wonderful it is that all depressing winters are blanketed by the comforting summers ? Where do you choose to go if all the sweetness of life began to melt ?

Those who rode with Toru would discover Naoko on the insides and Midori on the outsides of what, completes Norwegian Wood.

If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. - MURAKAMI