A Review of Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood is a work that can be said to be classics, bearing the imprint of Japan in the 1960s. Today I want to express my thoughts on the work.

Reading is always an interesting experience for many people, and immersing yourself in Haruki's words gives me a different feeling than reading the works I have read, because the writer's writing style This style is quite realistic, realistic and open.

As for the plot, the story revolves around the love triangle between Toru Watanabe - Naoko - Midori through narration, recalling the first person of Toru Watanabe's male protagonist about the love affair when he was 20 years old. Unlike other sentimental works, the love story takes place more naturally, without too many knots or climax, but things are culminated through the story of the character. For example, the story of Naoko's suicide was told through Reiko Ishida's narration, but this narrative would be more realistic because it came from the person who had been with her before he died and he added to Reiko's thoughts. This would not be possible without Haruki writing well in the third person.

Regarding the writing, Haruki, he did not go into expressing the sequence of the story but covering the work as the inner thoughts of the character. In other words, he describes the character's interior and intertwines using metaphorical images and monologues. This makes him stand out from other authors that he has read because the careful character description of the character and the specific monologue here, Watanabe, make the reader more sympathetic for the character. and feel similar if you've met the same things.

A more interesting feature of the work is its coverage of music, sex, alcohol and tobacco. Using real-name music, the song is really open, straightforward in describing the hot scenes is also a novelty, breaking the author's own style that only Haruki Murakami can dare to do.

More broadly in the love triangle story, I am interested in two major issues that are important in the work. It's the lifestyle of students in the 1960s in Japan and the seriousness of the mental illnesses that the trauma of the past has rooted in and profoundly affects cognition. For example, here I think of Naoko because of Kizuki's death, but 4 years after his death, he still committed suicide after having undergone complex psychological treatment. Patients with personality and depression are really dangerous and in his work, suicide becomes an effective way to solve problems in life. As for the relaxed lifestyle of Japanese students in the 60s, they always find alcohol and sex to relieve stress in daily life. It is worth mentioning that suicide also occurred ... Half of the characters who appeared mostly committed suicide or attempted suicide but failed.

After finishing the book, I also decided to go to the cinema. This will certainly be an extremely difficult film-to-movie adaptation, and probably because I am a fastidious audience. The film of the same name directed by Tran Anh Hung did not cause me too much emotion when the film did not have a clear introduction of the character at the beginning of the film and throughout the work a lot of cut scenes but again not having enough intentions or passing too quickly is confusing and when I have not yet understood what is happening, I have come to another scene. The film also features many interesting details and easily becomes unnatural. For example, the first film with a little Nazi show or the scene of Midori first appeared unexpectedly without a specific situation. Music is a way to guide viewers according to the character's emotional level but sometimes it is unreasonable. For example, near the end after Naoko committed suicide, continuously for a few minutes, it was a somewhat scary, bleak, ghost song while I personally saw a sad song and should add a few scenes and details. more because it's a climax in the work. However, in general, it is still a movie worth watching with beautiful and poetic scenes.

This is an interesting, stylish work that you should read at least once because I think each reading you will have a different experience.

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