18.5k reviews for:

挪威的森林

Haruki Murakami

3.85 AVERAGE


Hard to hate this book despite its flaws

Quotes:

Death exists—in a paperweight, in four red and white balls on a billiards table—and we go on living and breathing it into our lungs like fine dust.

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

1. the comparison of women to children during sex scenes was weird
2. the female characters seemed unrealistic to me
3. i didn’t like that trauma and sexual assault were sexualized
4. it was beautifully sad and overwhelmingly melancholic
5. i loved how slow-paced the story was - it gave me a sense of comfort in the sadness of this book
6. the way the main character was written actually really stood out to me
dark emotional sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
emotional sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Altough it dealt with different theme, Norwegian Wood reminds me a lot of a Thai literature called 'Time in a Bottle'. Set in a decade of student movement and political heat (1960s Japan&1970s Thailand), a coming of age story of a boy whose memory of a girl he once loved filled with a western song (The Beatles' Norwegian Wood&Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle). It is interesting that these books were published around the same time, Time in a Bottle (1985) and Norwegian Wood (1987).

This is my first Murakami's book and I loved it. At first, I want to read his work because I want to try magical realist novel but I didn't research on his work. So I ended up getting Norwegian Wood only to find out from the preface that it was his first attempt on writing a realist novel. I still liked it anyway.

1q84 is my next stop. Guess it is a magical realist novel this time.
emotional inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
emotional lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced
emotional hopeful inspiring relaxing medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes