/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4305147]

Hey /lit/ I know we discuss Murakami a lot but can we get a Norwegian Wood thread happening?

When I first read it I thought it was amazing. Totally related to Toru, thought Midori and Naoko were rounded characters etc.

But now, looking back through it I feel like I fell for some kind of trick.

I mean Toru is supposed to be this autistic shut-in (can't deal with outside world, has no friends, etc) but suddenly he has the most powerful guy on campus (Nagasawa) wanting to be his friend and hook him up with hot sluts, has a little sex-obsessed girl (Midori) wanting his dick and praising him all the time, and Naoko who, justifiably, sees him as her only confidant (besides Reiko).

It just reads like some wish fulfilment fantasy of a lonely young guy. I mean when do edgy loners have these things happen to them? Also the constant inserts of music, books, etc seem like a cheap way of appearing hip, and the constant suicides and deaths (Storm Trooper, Naoko's sister, Toru's childhood friend, Midori's father, probably others) again seem like an easy way of adding emotional depth to the book.

I flicked to a random page and on it Naoko had just jerked Toru off ("be a good boy and shut up" while she does it") then 5 lines later tells a long story about finding her sister hanging in her bedroom.

What's your view of the book?

Please post sincerely, I genuiniely want to know

[Anonymous No.4305162]

Most of Murakami's works feature 20-30ish year olds who are comfortable in their loneliness. In Dance Dance Dance you've got this shut-in who happens to stumble on his old classmate, a cool cat actor. This gives him the opportunity to indulge in hookers and fast cars. I think Murakami is trying to convey that we're all introverted recluses to begin with, and that it's only through sheer luck (ie attractive physical attributes, inherited wealth) that we become people like Nagasawa.

[Anonymous No.4305181]

I remember liking Norwegian Wood, although I'm 24 now and I read it when I was like 18 so my perspective may have changed. I remember liking it because it's not all about "muh surrealism".

But yeah, there's a lot of wish fulfillment in Murakami. In 1Q84 there's a character who is a sexy female assassin with an insatiable sex drive who's into older men Murakami's age. It's pretty gross.

[Anonymous No.4305207]

>>4305162

>shut in

the dude has a job. you don't even know what words mean.

[Anonymous No.4305211]

>>4305181
I haven't read 1Q84, but I've read A Wild Sheep Chase and that also involves a lonely, poor and jaded older guy having a girl fall in love with him (a girl with beautiful ears) and follow him across the country, to a little tiny town in the middle of nowhere, for no reason of her own.

Yes the narrator realizes at the end that he perhaps hasn't given her attention and so on, but the fact that she adored him so much was still pretty weird.

[Anonymous No.4305220]

>>4305207
Not him but the definition of "shut-in" pre-hikimori (i.e. the era Murakami writes about) probably means a guy who goes to work but has no friends otherwise.

I realize it doesn't apply to this sort of person now

[Anonymous No.4305233]

>>4305207
Have you even read the book? He chooses to stop working, eventually becoming a complete recluse.

[Anonymous No.4305258]

After Dark is the only one by him I've read, but I loved it as I'm a huge sucker for that kind of atmosphere. I'm a bit afraid to read more though.

[Anonymous No.4305321]

All of his stuff is shitty.

There's always a focus on the real mundane shit like smoking and drinking cigarettes but it's put in such a way to appear more than it is. More mundane shit like a description of a girl and they always have some mundane thing that's blown up to be big.

Then on the other hand there's all the people appearing out of nowhere and unrealistic things that happen to grease the story along. (girls who nonchalantly fuck the main character)

I think his writing is wish fulfillment. It's what every reasonably read person lacking strong interests is into, having a life that is "literary", like getting an unexpected call from your friend while you're smoking and watching The Price is Right to go out and pop pills and driving out to him after you drink two beers to loosen up and doing 5g MDMA and heading to the club where you meet a cute girl with eyes like sour apple sweets and grind on each other and make out and dance for 2 hours without ever saying a word and then trying to find out who she was for the next 3 days.

Wow, it's fucking nothing, but apparently it looks just as good in a novel than it does on your facebook feed.

[Anonymous No.4305330]

>>4305321
It's entertaining

[Anonymous No.4305334]

i'd give it a try if i was 15

[Anonymous No.4305770]

>Toru is supposed to be this autistic shut-in

He really isn't. He's someone who's obviously living the life set out for him rather than the one he wants and that's why he has no real interest in engaging with anything. The whole book is about if he wants to stay passive with Naoko or be active with Midori and the opening chapter heavily implies he chose poorly and remained passive.

And when you say it's wish fulfilment, maybe it is but enough parts of the book have happened to me that it's authentic enough. I met a girl in a similar fashion to how Toru meets Midori, for example.

I've never read any other Murakami but I will once I finish what I'm reading now - any recommendations? - but every time I see a hate thread for him and this book is brought up, it always seems totally misinterpreted.

[Anonymous No.4305780]

>>4305770
>He really isn't

He talks about not being "adapted to the outside world" to Midori, and mentions at several points that he didn't speak to anybody and sat alone all the time in lectures etc, that is until Midori came to sit by him and pretty much demanded to be in his life.

I don't hate the guy, I just feel disillusioned by what I once thought was amazing literature.

A Wild Sheep Chase is ok. It's supposed to be surreal but there's really not that much surrealism in it.

[Anonymous No.4305837]

>>4305780

That's because he's lead a very insular life up to that point and now it's his first time away from home, the 'world' seems like an inexplicable place to him. He can't understand how Storm Trooper can care so much about his routine, for example, because Toru can't care about himself. This passivity lets him breeze through certain things but he gets nothing from it, like how he gets laid regularly, partly because he's hanging around with that cool guy and partly because he has the faux confidence of not caring if he has sex or not, yet it doesn't make him feel any different.

[Anonymous No.4307189]

>>4305321
I'll agree. This book sucks a bag of dicks. That's my analysis of the book. It just sucks a bag of dicks.It's the only book by him that I've read and I probably wouldn't read any of the others.