Haruki Murakami
Noruwei No Mori (Norwegian Wood-Tokyo Blues)

"Norwegian Wood-Tokyo Blues" ("Noruwei No Mori"), Murakami Haruki (Jpn) 1987. In Italy initially published in 1993 by Feltrinelli with the title "Tokyo Blues". In 2006, Einaudi published it with the title "Norwegian Wood-Tokyo Blues".

Brief Chronology:

Japan: In 1970, the suicide of writer Yukio Mishima ideally closes an era (still tied to the traditionalist aspect of that country) of Japanese literature, and in 1976, the novel "Kagirinaku tomei ni chikai buru" ("Almost Transparent Blue") by Ryu Murakami opens another, influenced by the greater presence of Western narrative, literary, and stylistic characteristics: both European and American. The first novel by Haruki Murakami "Kaze no uta o kike" ("Hear the Wind Sing"), 1979, can be framed in the path traced three years earlier by the other Murakami. From 1980 to 1985, he writes three more novels and sees his popularity grow outside of Japan. Up to this point, all his books are distinguished by a pronounced Pop vein (on various levels of cultural depth: from Chandler to the Beatles) and a tendency to divide reality into two opposing universes (one real and the other metaphysical) in which the protagonists tend to move not always linearly. By the fifth novel, in 1987, Murakami takes a decisive turn: "Noruwei No Mori" is indeed a book filled with realism and sentimentality until then untouched by him, becoming his most intimate, existential, and painful work... and leading to his definitive consecration in terms of international popularity.

The Story:

During an intercontinental flight, thirty-seven-year-old Watanabe listens to the Beatles song "Norwegian Wood" being broadcast over the intercom. From here begins a long journey back in time where he will narrate in first person the events that took place in his life between the ages of 17 and 20: in a Japan crossed by late '60s student riots, the adolescent Watanabe lives with resigned indecision and guided only by his personal and strong vision of moral obligations, all the passages (grief, emotional instability, falling in love, etc.) that will lead him toward adulthood. Not without having paid a heavy price and a journey along the path that leads to the loss of innocence.

The "Bildungsroman":

Murakami does nothing to hide the pedagogical and cathartic intent of the novel: he continuously and directly cites, through the voice of the narrator, the main literary references he draws from (Salinger, Dickens and the Mann of "The Magic Mountain") and not only "designs" the protagonist in response to such inspirations but places him in many situations similar to those described by the same. "Noruwei No Mori" can easily be considered the most important "coming of age" novel of the late twentieth century. An education that for Watanabe comes in the most painful and intimate way possible. The story opens with grief and in a sense closes with grief, and in between, there is room for mental discomfort, a sense of inadequacy, rejection of the common sense of normality, and that cursed uncertainty in deciding what is good and what is bad: letting it be fate that chooses the paths of the future. A painful and sincere book that perfectly depicts that "monster" every teenager has inside.

The Music:

As the title itself suggests (the Japanese translation of "Norwegian Wood"), the book is hugely indebted to the world of music (and obviously, specifically, especially to that between '68 and '70) and almost on every page an author or a song in particular is mentioned. This is perhaps the sole characteristic that links this novel to the four previous ones by Murakami along with that common thread that shows the sunset of the "postcard" Japan that for too long, in the West, we have cultivated in our heads.

Personal Note:

I had the fortune to read it at an age practically identical to that of the protagonist: this "shaped" me a lot. I don't know if, for those who know me (even here, behind a screen), it is a good or a bad thing, a virtue or a flaw, but that's how it happened. I recommend it to all DeBaserian adolescents but also to others.

Mo.