Thursday 30 January 2014

Readalong Two: 'Norwegian Wood' by Haruki Murakami

Welcome to the home page for the second of our two January in Japan readalongs :)  This time we're looking at Haruki Murakami's breakthrough novel, Norwegian Wood, and below you'll find links to the reviews and thoughts of all the readalong participants (this will be updated as I become aware of the posts!).

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Before that though, I just thought I'd leave a few posers for people to ponder (and perhaps reply to in the comments section):

1) What did you think of Toru and his behaviour?
2) Did the tone of nostalgia strike a chord with you, or did you find it hard to empathise with the characters?
3) Norwegian Wood is a much 'straighter' novel than much of Murakami's work - did you enjoy the realistic tone, or would you have preferred his usual twists on reality?

P.S.  Did you know that the original title is based on a mistranslation?  In the original song, the 'wood' referred to is a wooden floor, but the Japanese translation is actually 'wood' as in a group of trees...  Murakami kept the mistranslation as it suits his themes :)

If you'd like to comment on these questions (or anything else...), please feel free to ;)  And now, the reviews...

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