 Norwegian
Wood- by Haruki Murakami trans. Jay Rubin
- Vintage International, 2000
- 296 pages
- Review by Joshua Messer
Norwegian Wood is a beautiful
book.
I am disturbed by both the lameness of
that statement and its lack of descriptive detail. But it is true.
It is the only thing I could think after finishing this new translation
(another translation by Alfred Birnbaum was published in Japan as
a study aid for Japanese studying English.) Apparently, Japan agreed.
This is the book that made Murakami an absurd success, so great
that he actually fled Japan to escape the celebrity it brought.
It is not hard to see the mass appeal.
This is the least Haruki Murakami of all the Haruki Murakami available
in English. In fact, the Translator’s Note mentions the fact that
this novel resembles much of the autobiographical fiction that Murakami’s
experimentation stood in stark opposition to. No men dressed as
sheep. No attractive chubby girls with their sound muted. No elephant
factories. It does, however, have:
- A love triangle in which one member is dead
- A girl named “Green” whose sister is named “Pink”
- A disappearing Stormtrooper
- Four suicides
- An extremely odd loony bin.
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