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.