The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 30 December 2014
by Haruki Murakami
We all have had that experience in which a sight or a smell or a song suddenly brings us back to a time and a place that was significant for us. It is one of those intense elements of memory that can revive strong emotions of all kinds. This novel opens when Toru Watanabe hears the Beatles song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird has Flown)" and is himself suddenly thrown back two decades, upon a memory of youthful love and tragedy. In what is Murakami's most accessible novel, he takes us back to a young man's early academic career, way back in 1969, when he was young, yearning and waiting for his life to really begin. Toru was in a three-way friendship with a couple. After young Kizuki dies tragically and unexpectedly, Toru and Naoko drift apart, but later come together again. In their new companionship, formed by their mutual memories of Kizuki, they form a new bond of grief and, eventually, love. But they are both marked by the abiding grief that presages clinical depression and sadness. Naoko lands in a very liberal institution, where Toru also finds a curious appeal. There are many literary allusions in this novel, and this is most reflected in Toru's highly relevant reading of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (though Murakami doesn't burden his brisk text with details of these references). In the meantime, back in the real world, Toru also falls in with Midori, a free-spirited girl who wants him to acknowledge the uncertainty he feels with Naoko. Murakami's characters are caught up in the formative years of their lives, with intense emotions, deep uncertainty, grief and unexpected, and quite graphically depected, moments of intimacy. He tells a familiar story, one in which many readers will find echoes of their own nostalgic yearning for a time of youthful exploration and the first inklings of love. The book has many literary connections, as well as cultural references to its time that enliven the narrative and form a context to Toru's unsettled expectations. It is a coming of age story that takes place within a vivid emotional storm. It gives tragedy a romantic edge (as many literary tragedies do), but grounds it in an earthy and literary context. Recommended.
Also by Murakami: [Kafka on the Shore]