Even when I was still a child I had always been admiring of books in all shapes and sizes. I sometimes admired some covers so much, I used to peruse some of them ad nausea when I was still very young, at a commodious corner at the far end of the Big Bookshop (which was made antiquated by Popular Bookstore, if my memory serves) near the Woodlands Checkpoint. While I no longer have this quirk at this age (I’d like to think I’m a wee bit more mature), I still have the same admiration and quasi-obsession for well-written 'temporal' fiction. But I have always been quite a sci-fi person. When the presses were tripping all over Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, I was happy with decade old works of Orson Scott Card (tho' a crazy Mormon dude with good plot styling). When Neil Gaiman’s Stardust was enjoying renewed attention (no) thanks to its movie adaptation, I was raving over Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama Saga ('Bless the man!'). But those were the army days.
It’s been so long since my penultimate post. It’s not that my schedule is too full for me to blog — it isn't — but rather I feel my writing inspirations gradually drained from my soul in this scorching heat of late that is involuntary Anime watching. It will be a journey of rediscovery as I slowly relocate my lost ethos. In the meantime, I’d like to begin with a short book review — Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. It’s no surprise that I missed the train the first time despite profuse recommendations from JY. Having only finished Norwegian Wood recently, I suppose there is a tinge of regret that I kept myself out of the loop for so long out of genre snobbery. While my usual favorites of sci-fi are gripping works of conceptual imagination, Norwegian Wood is, really, a breathtaking ride in emotive imagery.
A book is often judged by its cover, but in that aspect Norwegian Wood misrepresents. It is a simple story of teenage love and adulthood, one which could be easily dismissed as mainstream pulp fiction. But what the book does best is not the plot; the overwhelming emotions Murakami conveys through his writing style gives life to the main characters. You can almost reach out and touch the characters as they try to communicate their souls through the imperfections of language. But I chalk it up to my inability to react in the intended manner to the emotive nuances perhaps lost in translation. At this point, it is important to note that I read the English translation of Norwegian Wood by Jay Rubin, which I believe is the more recent version. In any case the protagonist of this first-person narrative is Toru Watanabe, a somewhat unmotivated and cynical college student who is not too sure about where he is heading in life. He possesses a surreal detachment from the world around him, perhaps as a result of past pains. Although the story is told from Toru’s inner perspective, he nevertheless emits an aura of eccentric unpredictability in the way he responds to the things happening around him.
The mainstay of the story revolves around Toru when he was studying literature in a Tokyo college. In Tokyo, he met his childhood friend Naoko, whom he shared a painful past and with whom he was emotionally entangled (it’s complicated). Through his bond with her, he sought to regain normalcy and recover from the past. Unfortunately, things do not always turn out for the best and happiness is not guaranteed even in fiction. He often found himself unsure about his choices and uncertain of even his own desires. He also met Midori in school, a cheerful and eccentric girl who seemed to contrast heavily with both himself and the deeply troubled Naoko.
[ad verbatim]
In summary, Norwegian Wood is a great book about loss beyond death and love beyond lust. Whether you are a teenager still searching for answers or a grizzly old fart hungry for nostalgia, there’s something in it for you to take home.