Toru Watanabe

Norwegian Wood

Last month, I read Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. This is the second book of him that I’ve read and turned out to be one of my favorite books. 

The story revolves around memories of Toru Watanabe. Memories about his past life, love, losing, friendship, and daily life. The story started when a 40-years-old Toru Watanabe hear Beatles’ Norwegian Wood that brought him back to the memories 20 years ago. It started from his rare friendship with Kizuki who made him met Naoko, the love of his life. The story moved to his daily life in university where he studied drama and his life in his dorm. He also made a love-friendship relationship with his classmate where their acts made me laugh sometimes. The fragments of the book revolves in so many times of his life, but there were mostly Naoko on each of the fragment.

The novel tells lots of beautiful touching descriptive lines. Lines about situation of a place or a personality of a person. What made me breathtaking is also about the way he told us the feelings that Toru had. It’s like we were really empathetically connected to his feelings. Awesome. 

Beside the storyline and his fabulous descriptive writings, what really made me fall in love with the book is its character. How Toru Watanabe, the main character of the book, has several similar personality and way of thinking with me.

Toru Watanabe

Here are some lines of the book that depicts my similarity with him.

“I was more of a listener than a talker”

(Hell, yeah am)

“I didn’t have much to say to anything but kept to myself and my books. With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw its fragrance deep inside me. 

This was enough to make me happy”

 (Fragrance of books!)

“Do you always travel alone like that?

Uh-huh

You enjoy solitude?”

(I like solitude travelling)

“Nothing special. I have things I like to do.

For instance?

Hiking trips. Swimming. Reading.

You like to do things alone, then?

I guess so. I could never get excited about games you play with other people. 

I can’t get into them. I lose interest”

(My kind of exercise)

“I was an only child. I was satisfied being alone”

(I am an only child)

“It may even be better with the time to read on the train”

(I do love to read on train so much)

“Oh well, what the hell, you obviously want to be alone, so I’ll leave you alone. 

Go ahead and think away your heart’s content”

(Happens to my love relationship)

See? It giggles me when I read those lines of the book. It is the first time in my life that I read a book that really close to my own thoughts and feelings.