"Now… I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories of imperfect thoughts." This is how Haruki Murakami, through the voice of his noble narrator Toru Watanabe, begins "Norwegian Wood". It is a poignant beginning; one that brings into question the factuality of all that follows, but not necessarily the feeling.

This was the second (of three, so far) of Murakami's books that I'd read. The first, "A Wild Sheep's Chase" lost me in its allegorical approach to the existential detective novel. The third, "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle", was, like "Norwegian Wood", a much more straightforward and accessible a narrative, but no less complex. Straightforward and accessible in that there aren't any surreal tangents or dreamlike characters. Everything and everyone here is painted with a wide brush of reality. The complexity comes, however, with the fact that though there is no typical narrative to latch on to -- it's is composed of a series of interlocking vignettes -- allowing the book to resemble life in the randomness and unpredictability of its structure.

Although originally written in Japanese, the typical Western reader would never know it. Jay Rubin's translation is seamless, capturing Murakami's easy dialogue effortlessly. The writing really shines through. As do Murakami's rhetorical techniques, which include using personal letters to get past what would be a lot of lengthy exposition. Usually I find this technique distasteful and lazy, but Murakami's letters are so skillfully economical and honest (not to mention woven consistently into the narrative) that I found it to be a rather effective technique. And his powers of language are staggering, so much so that he manages to make tired cliches seem robust. He even trumps the saccharine 'box of chocolates' simile from "Forrest Gump", coming up with an analogy of his own that is not only clever, but also relevant and original.

It also helps that for Western audiences, Murakami is unexpectedly accessible, as American music and American literature dominate his thoughts. This gives the novel (like all of Murakami's novels, from what I understand) an almost paradoxical feel for Western readers. I found myself skipping along, feeling as if the story was set in Berkley during the late 1960's, but then every once and a while Japanese culture will jump up; after a touch of vertigo, you realize just how transcultural the East has become.

One of the novel's major themes, and definitely its most powerful, is the notion, often repeated by the characters themselves, that "death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life." Watanabe appears to have the Midas touch; only when he comes in contact with people, they don't turn to gold, they die. Sometimes it feels like Murakami is chronicling the genocide of a sensitive subculture of 1960's Japanese youths. Fortunately, death is never exploited. Well, sometimes it's used as a device to jumpstart the narrative, but Murakami has such sensitivity in his writing that it never feels cheap.

Murakami's greatest feat is his spare recounting of college dormitory life. It's rendered realistically, providing a setting for much of Watanabe's ennui. He even notes at one point that college is nothing more than a "period of training in techniques for dealing with boredom." Luckily, Watanabe gets a lot of mileage out of the people he meets in his dorm. A fastidious roommate, a lecherous friend, and others provide a menagerie of minor characters who revolve around the story's periphery, reflecting back at Watanabe certain aspects of his personality that he may not want to see.

In Watanabe, Murakami has created a terrifically grounded narrator. He is frank and plainspoken, to such an extreme degree that the people he knows keep commenting on it. He lacks pretension and ego, while constantly in a mode of observing. In many senses, he is a perfect narrator. Thankfully he fulfills that duty, because as a character you'd almost never notice him. He goes through periods where he's a cipher, and then through periods where his low-key charisma inexplicably attracts a number of beautiful, iconoclastic girls. It appears that you have to be tuned to a specific, underground radio station to really appreciate Watanabe. He's like a secret club that only attracts people who are "kinda weird and twisted and drowning". I dug him.

The bulk of the novel (and here is where I'll talk as much about the narrative as it will allow me -- you'll soon how little that means) is taken up by Watanabe's relationships with two of these weird and twisted characters.

Midori, a fellow student, is a whirlwind of unbridled curiosity and unchecked ego, especially when the topic is sex. She's also funny, charismatic, sad, immature, dramatic, passionate, and highly emotional. She challenges Watanabe, and is successful in bringing him out of his shell. I found myself rooting for Midori to be the one that Watanabe chooses for love; but in the end Murakami makes you realize that love is not a voluntary thought, and that the "choice" is never that easy.

Instead, Watanabe is obsessed with Naoko, the girlfriend of his dead best friend. Their love affair is always tenuous, and kind of creepy in its necrophilia. Naoko is tortured and troubled and sad. It's hard to decide if she never really loves Watanabe, or is just incapable of love. Murakami never provides easy answers when dealing with her situation. In that way she becomes not only the most real but also the most frustrating character in the book. What does Watanabe see in her? I'll never know, but I certainly recognize his reactions to a transcendent feeling.

Naoko also provides the book's title. She loves the Beatles' song 'Norwegian Wood' because it "can make me feel so sad. I don't know, I guess I imagine myself wandering in a deep wood. I'm all alone and it's cold and dark, and nobody comes to save me. That's why Reiko never plays it unless I request it." Reiko, Naoko's roommate, in a typical moment of wit, comments that it "Sounds like Casablanca!" This is typical Murakami: positioning gentle emotional epiphanies against modern, pop-culture obsessed observations. It's a style that certainly makes this book, on the surface morbid and forlorn, addictively readable.

Recommended: Yes