For reasons I can’t fully explain, this book has always held talismanic powers for me. I’ve walked passed it numerous times in the book store, always intending to read it, but never buying it. Until, one day, I did. But then it sat on my shelf unread, collecting dust, and taking up space in a room infrequently visited but never entirely free of my interest. I went on to read other Murakami books, and loved many of them. But Norwegian Wood has been a consistently […]
I sometimes really like Murakami and sometimes stop reading before I get too far.
So there’s an interesting way in which novel gets revisited in the more recent Murakami novel: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. That book is about a man in his thirties reflecting back on his high school/early college years and trying to decide what happened that made his friends leave him. It also involves the power of shame and memory and mental health. This novel is about a man in his thirties reflecting back on his late school and early college relationships with […]