Murakami

I feel like bowing down at the altar of Haruki Murakami. I find myself singing his name – a soft chant, a wind. This weekend I finished reading his novel, Norwegian Wood, with the same kind of satisfaction that I’ve only experienced when I feel like someone truly understands what I am saying. The kind of feeling that makes me want to stand up (fist in air) and say Yes!

The story is nothing so new, I suppose. It is about a young man in love. It’s about love surrounded by death. It takes place in Tokyo during the 60’s and uses the music of the Beatles as nice little focal points of emotion (hence, Norwegian Wood). But it is not a story about the Beatles, or even about a young man who loves the Beatles, but about the way that a life can resonate with the very music itself.

Compared to The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, which is perhaps a more brilliant book, Norwegian Wood is a relatively normal story with relatively normal characters, except that a few of them reside in a glorified mental institution cum commune. Time progresses in a mostly linear fashion, I suppose, but when I was reading the book I was too enveloped in its somber intensity to be too concerned about how one moment would flow to the next. And here I am being vague again. Loving the book without really knowing why. Bowing down at the altar and whispering the name of the author to myself.

When I think about my own experiences at the university and in this past year since graduation, I cannot but help hearing their echo in the world of Toru Watanabe. The ridiculous roommates… the bizarre, earnest conversations… the attempts to be close to people and realizing that you can only get so close. And yet it is more than that. I’ll tell you what – read some Haruki Murakami and then we’ll talk.