Norwegian Wood 2

November 18^th, 2013
Norwegian Wood 2^nd Reading Journal

World Literature / Mr. Garrioch

12v1 111150 Ho In Hee

       Toru is indeed a very charming guy, a great listener who knows how to pay good attention to people’s words and to help them feel comfortable. His taciturnity is so great it almost indicates him as a very considerate guy. With people spilling out their secrets, Toru simply sits in front of them, listening and nodding. He does not try to either give solutions to their troubles or prove how their problems are mere trivialities, but merely keeps his lips tight until people magically divulge all their secrets to him. In this regard, Toru may be seen as someone who truly understands others. Toru is the only person who speaks to the eccentric outsider Storm Trooper, who can discuss deeply about The Great Gatsby with Nagasawa, who can maintain calm with no mark of astonishment when listening to Reiko’s grotesque past story. Toru is indeed a good conversationalist. The silence he keeps attracts a lot of people as if it is an embracement of their dirty secrets. But whether he understands others is a different issue. After all, how can Toru empathize with people with all different stances?

    Such is exactly the case Toru has with Nagasawa and Hatsumi. It is notable how Toru joins Nagasawa with one-night stands and yet still nods at Hatsumi’s story. Toru clearly recognizes Nagasawa’s excessive selfhood and arrogance that eat away Nagasawa and Hatsumi’s happy relationship. This is evident when Toru agrees to Nagasawa’s comment that “[he] don’t deserve a girl like Hatsumi.” Nonetheless, Toru becomes closest with Nagasawa in the whole dormitory, sometimes enjoying deep discussions and sometimes “swapping” and “switching” women. He sticks to a stance of a complete onlooker, never intervening in a conflict between Nagasawa and Hatsumi even when he grasps the fundamental problem lying between the two.

     Same applies for numerous intercourses Toru engages in. One dominant opinion about Norwegian Wood was displeasure of how frequently and easily Toru has sexes with women. Whether a girl asks for a dinner in her house or asks for a sexual relation, Toru comply with all women’s requests. He is self aware of his love towards Naoko and knows all relations with women are basically win-win strategies that bring pleasure and ease loneliness. There is no reason for Toru to turn down the proposals. He lets people ask him whatever they want, almost as if acting on the sidelines of issues around him.

     But what I notice is change in Toru’s attitude. This protagonist who nods at any requests others ask him starts expressing his position towards the end of the book. The turning point might be vague – it could be the last meeting with Hatsumi when she tells Toru to be himself, or it could be some point afterward. But the change itself is clear. During the latter half of the book, Toru refuses resolutely to Midori’s constant ask for sex. He asks Reiko for help when he has difficulty making sure of his mind. Realizing his affection toward Midori after long painful consideration, he tries to make up with Midori by calling her repeatedly and attempting conversations. He actually takes action according to his wills instead of enjoying sexes with Midori, being bewitched by Naoko’s dead beauty, and vacillating between the two with abrupt impulses driving him.

     This is a great shift for Toru. Toru might not appear as closed as Naoko at a first glance. Naoko’s emotional instability is explicit as to close herself in a secluded sanatorium, and Toru’s shut heart can easily be overlooked because of Naoko’s. But Kizuki was not a gem only to Naoko. Toru and Kizuki were friends of each other’s childhood, and Kizuki’s sudden suicide should have left deep wound to Toru as well as Naoko. As a matter of fact, Norwegian Wood, although narrated in Toru’s voice, barely contains any content of Toru himself. It gives detailed descriptions of Toru’s narration on other people but never reveals Toru’s own story. Even Nagasawa who talks with Toru the most puts Toru as a “tight lipped man” who would never disclose to anyone what he does not wish to. So Toru sharing his concerns with Reiko and struggling to make decisions is certainly a step change. Facing Naoko’s closure and his moving love, Toru finally learns to be involved in his own life more independently.

     Surely, settling down on a new girl (Midori) after the old lover’s death is not the most romantic ending. But would the ending be any more satisfactory if Toru was never able to forget Naoko? How is being shackled to a dead girl any different from Naoko failing to move on from shades of Kizuki? Toru chooses Midori over Naoko. Naoko lives in others’ lives, constantly concerning how others would view her and fearing she might eventually be removed from their memories someday. And she never succeeds to go back out into the world full of strangers. At first Toru shares Naoko's fears and let others lead his life. He assumes the attitude of a bystander even to his own situations. But he finally takes a step to live his life, trying to move on from the painful past. He struggles to find his own way out in “the dead center of this place that was no place.”

     “What stays in [your] heart will stay, …, and what vanishes will vanish.” When, in his middle years, he hears an orchestra cover version of “Norwegian Wood” in a plane, Toru finds himself feeling blue. The past that has been old enough for Toru to forget all but the small details still visits him from time to time and stirs his emotion. The scars Kizuki and Naoko left does not - and perhaps never will - vanish, but Toru is no more fettered to his past. He is not stirred up by this piece of bitter memory emerging and can wait for it to pass by. Because Toru is no more a spineless conformer, and has finally managed to move on.

Norwegian Wood

August 29, 2013

Norwegian Wood (1)

World Literature

12v1 Ho In Hee

Literature is a portrayal of reality. Regardless of its genre, a piece of literature reflects reality. Not necessarily that the plot is something likely to happen in the real world, but “reflecting reality” is more of capturing pieces of the reality. Only then it can evoke sympathy from the readers. Unfortunately, Murakami Haruki’s novel did not appear to be reflecting reality at a first glance. As I turn the pages of this book over, Toru Watanabe have an emotion-revealing conversation with a Stewardess he just met, Naoko let Watanabe be disconcerted as she gushes out her ludicrous worries, and Storm Trooper exhibits every eccentric behavior he can have. All the characters in were so different and so unique to portray the normal people of the normal world. But in making such hasty judgment, I overlooked a very important truth: that no one is normal.

Naoko is a character tied down by the past wound. She is a friend (or girlfriend) of Watanabe. Their relationship is not clearly defined- it is somewhere in between friends and lovers. But this indefinite relation between Naoko and Watanabe does not seem to be due to the absence of love between them. It is apparent that Watanabe loves Naoko. But Naoko also seems to have a feeling towards Watanabe. Naoko is depicted as a stand-off type of person who does not favor interacting with anyone. Her self-isolation bears an exception for Watanabe. She makes attempts to share her ideas with. The reason for their ambiguous relation seems to lie not on the absence of affection between the two but rather on Naoko’s not being ready to accept a new relationship. Since the death of her ex-boyfriend Kizuki, Naoko closes her from the world. She remains open to Watanabe, but even with Watanabe, Naoko often becomes neurotic on the subject of “eternity”. She does not doubt so much about Watanabe’s feeling of her, but does doubt strongly that such feeling would last long. This indicates that Naoko is still not free from the painful memory of Kizuki.

Unlike Naoko who is very delicate and vulnerable, Watanabe’s dorm roommate Storm Trooper is a self-determined man. He pursues nothing but his fascination. He does not bother to make any friends who do not understand him. Storm Trooper and Naoko have point of sameness in that they both refuse to associate with others. But if Naoko’s isolation is rooted in fear, Storm Trooper’s rests in that he does not find any friend necessary. Storm Trooper is disturbed by no one around him. While Watanabe shows small irritation at him from time to time, he realizes Storm Trooper’s pure interest in his career is reasonable. Same thing – finding Storm Trooper’s peculiar behaviors funny but realizing parts of him appealing – may be happening to Naoko when she laughs at Watanabe’s stories of his roommate.

Nagasawa is another very interesting character. He is a utilitarianist who does not refuse anything that is beneficial to him. He does not see any problem with his womanizing habit since it is something done under mutual consent. When womanizing, he allows nothing but physical intercourse. He also looks down at people. To Nagasawa, all the residents of the dorm are “idiots” who never read profound books from more than 30 years ago. Consequently, Nagasawa’s relations with others are very superficial.

The three characters show three different ways of reacting to confusion of the “Norwegian Wood”. Personally, I buy Naoko’s most captivating. I look forward to see how the three peculiar yet normal characters adopt to the confusion, and how they influence Watanabe in three remaining quarters of the book.

Metafiction - Student

June 23^rd, 2013

Metafiction – Student

Mr. Garrioch / World Lit

12v1 111150 Ho In Hee

        A lonely desert. Yes, definitely a lonely desert where red sands repeat themselves over and over vast space. North, south, west, and east all filled with sands - red sands that distract my consciousness. . I am just standing there, not knowing what to do like an extraterrestrial that accidentally landed on Earth. The earth under my feet belches out the heat into the red desert’s dry air. But I do not feel the heat. As if I do not exist in this desert. As if I do not exist at all.

        The sight fades out. The teacher is doing his presentation with all the lights off. The PowerPoint slide is stopped on its fourth page for several minutes. He knows that his voice tortures every part of us. He is just displaying extreme sadism by taking his time explaining every small detail of his PowerPoint slides. Time seems to be stuck. Students’ heads are moveless, all headed to the table. The teacher displays no sign of pausing. The only thing moving in the classroom is a little fly. The fly throws itself across the space, making a parabolic motion.

        My mind begins to blur. With the decrescendo of the buzzing of the fly and murmuring of the teacher, I lost consciousness. All the noises ceased. I existed and did not simultaneously, with my mind drifting off to where the zephyr carried me. I travel further and further away from the classroom, from the lecturer, from the world. I let my eyelids drop. A faint wind brushes through my ear. The sandyish wind is rough but gentle. And I am alone again in the desolate desert, under the burning sun. I look ahead at whatever is there. The desert throws up a weak breeze somewhere, blowing out its dry sand. The red sand ripples. I stretch my arms into the hazy dust. But nothing is caught, and my hands are lost. My shirt flutters in the wind. I begin to walk.

        There is no sign of a living creature in this vast desert. The hot sand that covers my ankle each time I take a step forward does not tell me where to go. I sink on the lonely desert, breathing in the hot air. I look back, and there it is, my staggering footprints. The footprints are the only evidence of anything alive. Sighing, I hear a familiar buzzing in my ears. I prick my ears up. There is the fly in my sight. I start to run after the fly. I run until I am out of breath, as if I am aiming somewhere. When the fly is near as I can reach, it vanishes. And there is a camel instead, The fly must have brought me to this camel. The camel looks at me and blinks its eyes slowly just as it is telling me to ride on it. I leap on it. And instead of the camel’s swollen back, there is..

        My hips, splat on the floor, are tingling. The teacher tells me to stand up. His eyes are fixed on me, and their firmness awakes me from my haziness. It is time to use reasonable deduction to predict the reason behind the lecturer’s judgment. What in me caused him to stare at me so fiercely? Or more precisely, Or more precisely, what angered him? Is it that important to beam at me that he should even stop talking? Then the bell rang, and I began to pack my bag. He told me to stay. The camel dim on the edge of my mind disappears into the red sand. And I am alone again in the trackless desert, all by myself.

+) The dozing (or dreaming? illusioned?) part is gray. Plus, I find the images attached not so pleasurable (especially the fly one), but they were inevitably put since they are the images used in the story.