#Myfavoritebooks: Norwegian Wood - Murakami ( Rừng Nauy)

I first read Norwegian Wood by Murakami when I was a freshman. I read it on a Blackberry bought with my savings from my last year at high school.

I read it on the bus, in the queue, before bedtime, and even during the English classes. yah I didn't read many pages in one going. I didn't read to reflect, just dipped into it now and again. That may be why my impression of it is quite fragmented. Or maybe I have a bad memory.

Anyway, this is the third time I've read Norwegian Wood. I didn't read it from cover to cover; I read it when I had nothing to do at night in the hospital. Reading in such a situation might be a little bit shallow, but I actually had a deeper understanding of the book this time. And each time reading is a different feeling.

When I almost finished reading the novel, I was hired to carry the gift set in the engagement ceremony (I got 150,000 VND, including a meal, nice clothes. But it just screwed up my fate of marriage. Now almost all my relationships suck!). Back then, there was a girl asking me what I was reading. I said that I was reading a romance novel. She replied that she also liked Asian sentimental novels. I said that this one was not such a cheap romantic fantasy, it was something so different. Having said that, I couldn't point out what the difference is.

Back then, I read other novels like Twilight, ones by Marc Levy or Nguyen Nhat Anh. I first read Norwegian Wood because it is labeled 18+. But as it turns out, the love in the novel is a dull blue sadness, with the white color of snow, the red hue of lipstick, the room in the rain, the late train, and the unsettlement of an 18-year-old boy. That's the sadness laden with ambiguous memories, which I couldn't make out back then.

Later on, when reading other works by Murakami, I found his style quite narrational and full of reflections. Love, if added, is just an additive, not too strong, just a little spicy, a little bitter. It gently blends with the deliberate but inconsolable torment.

The leading male characters in “Norwegian Wood”, “South of the Border, West of the Sun” and “Sputnik Sweetheart” are all isolated at heart, interested in reading books and obsessed by special girls who don’t fully accept their love. In retrospect, for an 18-year-old guy, it's no use trying to make out the love in Norwegian Wood. In the worst scenario, we could get it wrong. Walking a small path with somebody sometimes gives us the illusion that we are great in her eyes. Actually, sometimes, all we can do is silently seeing her struggling with her own thoughts. We can do nothing to help her out, and we end up making ourselves and our loved one suffer.