Norwegian Wood and The Catcher In The Rye Book Review by Carey

Norwegian Wood

 

Norwegian Wood is a 1987 novel by author Haruki Murakami. The story is a nostalgic one of Toru Watanabe's developing relationships between himself and two very different women; Naoko and Midori. The novel is centred heavily around loss and sexuality, the student movement in Tokyo and Toru's perception on student life and relationship dynamics.

 

Metaphorically Murakami uses season's to portray life's cycles, in-particularly winter. Winter can naturally represent dying and death and it reminds us that death is natural and inexorable. Using this, there is great detail and attention paid to the seasons and its relationship it has with events that happen in the story.

 

Murakami has a great way of describing characters features and quirks, and with this I could really envision all the characters in the book, however, Toru himself isn't as clearly described, but this could be purposefully done by Murakami as the importance is between the relationships Toru develops and his “coming of age” story.

 

There are three main themes to Norwegian Wood; the unpredictable nature of growing up, the sadness of death, and love. Essentially it's a love story, and it felt like your typical one, until about halfway through. Then it is slowly realized that it becomes something so much deeper than that; something so much more.

 

This story is on one side a story of misadventure and a melancholic exploration of adolescent love and another side a thought-provoking and poignant study of memory, morality and mortality. Murakami didn't disappoint and wrote with a poetic richness.

 

My only criticism for this book is that too much focus was paid to Naoko's roommate Reiko.

Then upon her release from the institution the sexual encounter between Toru and her seems unnecessary and somewhat “wrong”, Reiko reads like a mother figure and confidant to Toru and it doesn't read easy or sit well when they have sex.

 

The beginning of Norwegian Wood heralds the end and the end initiates a beginning. What lies In between is a cycle, to which Murakami's words rain onto the page in a sense of urgency and inexplicable sadness, I felt I was swept along this journey, and as a first time reader of Murakami I felt I was swept away with him.

 

 

  The Catcher in the Rye

 

I have read this book a number of times, and each time I take something different away from it.

The Catcher in the Rye is a true “Coming of Age” story and features 17 year old Holden Caulfield and the almost the entire book is centred on a 3 day long flashback in which he is kicked out of his school and delves into New York City.

 

Written by JD Salinger in 1951, the book is a “classic”, however many teenagers would still be able to relate to particular aspects of the book. Salinger writes realistically, with some humour and depression, with brashness and it can be somewhat brutal at times. There is a constant use of colloquialism’s which makes the reader instantly relate and envision Holden.

 

The book has a running theme of innocence and loneliness, which is very similar to Norwegian Wood, it also describes well how teenage boys can sometimes relate to women and the challenges they face in dealing with the problems of dating and falling in love.

 

Salinger has written the book in a very repetitive way in terms of language use; Holden uses the phrase “it kills me” a lot to describe his humour in things, although the repetitiveness can be somewhat envisioning to create Holden’s character it can also become slightly tedious.

 

The ending is uplifting to readers, throughout the book Holden is convinced he is older than he is and thinks himself an adult; however it becomes apparent that he gets emotional quickly and he is breaking down and finding difficulty in controlling his emotions, although the ending doesn’t give too much away it is uplifting and predicts stability and treatment.

 

Overall, a beautiful, classic book, which I am sure, will remain on syllabuses’ and in book shops for decades to come, this book should be first read in teenage years but can be equally enjoyed so much more for adult readers.

 

In the words of Holden Caulfield “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” (Salinger 1951)