Norwegian Wood - A Novel

Haruki Murakami's 1987 novel, Norwegian Wood could be described as a "coming of age " novel, or as the German's say, a Bildungsroman. The events in the novel take place in 1969 when Murakami, like his protagonist,Toru Watanabe was 19 years old. Murakami is a few years older than I am - I was 17 in 1969 - and although he grew up in Japan and I grew up in the United States, I can relate to many of the events in the novel. Music played a role in both our lives, and there was a cultural upheaval in both countries at that time. In the novel, many of Watanabe's friends commit suicide. Thankfully, I didn't share that experience.

Naturally, as young men fast approaching adulthood, we took advantage of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Unfortunately, like in his later novel, Kafka on the Shore Murakami goes into far too much detail writing about the sexual activities of the characters. In many ways, Murakami writes as well as the great writers of the 20th century - Hesse, Mann, Joyce - to name a few, but to me, his spending so much time on the sexual aspects detracts from his writing.

After finishing the novel, I watched the documentary series, The Beatles: Get Back which also takes place in 1969. After three days reading the novel and nearly seven hours watching the documentary, I was ready to leave 1969 forever.