It’s been a while since I finished a fiction book. I finished a technical and interesting book during the first two months of the year but long for some fiction. To that end, I just completed the novel by Haruki Murakami titled Norwegian Wood.
The story was riveting and very comforting. I found myself in a similar place to the characters and could find a bit of myself in each one. The way Murakami brought the characters to life and described death was very different to anything I had read before. It was stark, abrupt even, but for whatever reason still heartbreaking and real. Each character was placed and developed in their own way with depth and life. This novel was less of a read and more of an experience as all reading should be. I felt as though I was watching a film instead of symbols on pages. The way loss was portrayed was beautiful. It made my heart ache as I had last year when someone very close to me moved on to the otherside. The care and contrast of the characters experiences reminded me of my own life and the people around me. I’m an imperfect being as is everyone else. I felt connected to Toru, the main character, as he navigated life after death. Searching for meaning of death and life itself. A line that gave me a bit of comfort from the novel was “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” The theme of death and life, loneliness and comfort, of sadness and joy were carefully placed at every turn.
After reading the novel, I felt a deep sense of completeness in the tale; no additional words could add anything more. We are here once, we are here briefly, and we are given an unprecendented opportunity to be happy. If we are only concerned about how others felt about us, we wouldn’t get anything done? If we are careless to the ones we love, how can we truly love them? Life is about compromise but more importantly to never compromise. We compromise for death because each day we grow closer to it, but we should never compromise who we are and who we aim to become. We should never compromise the relationships that keep us anchored here to this earth because before long they too will disappear as though they never existed. We will forget at times, we will make mistakes, but above all, we will try our best in our own pursuits of happiness whether for love, for the love of the game, or for the sake of trying. That is why I say you should read Norwegian Wood.