Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

The first book from my office’s book club that I actually bother writing about. And why is that? Because over the years I’ve heard a few people too many talking about Murakami as if he was a writing god.

With every passing chapter of Norwegian Wood I kept on thinking about Irwin (from Alan Bennet’s The History Boys) handing essays back to his students: “Dull. Dull. Abysmally dull. A triumph… the dullest of the lot… I didn’t say it was wrong. I said it was dull. Its sheer competence was staggering. Interest nil. Oddity nil. Singularity nowhere.”

Seriously, despite a very impressive suicides/pages ratio, the book’s most noticeable characteristic is the author’s ability to express feelings, impressions, and thoughts with the vacuity (not to mention limited vocabulary, since at least in my translation everyone is “special” and has complex “issues”) of a teenager.

I’m also not quite sure why pretty much every cultural reference (with the exceptions of a few books, and one song) is actually linked to the Western world. Has Japan not produced a single musician or actor of note, does Murakami hate Japanese culture, or was he desperately trying to appeal to Western audiences? I can rule out the first option, not sure about the other two.

And for all the respect that the main character shows for the complex “issues” of the women he sleeps with, can I point out that the way in which he uses his roommate’s autistic traits as a conversation starter is just not funny?

But maybe Murakami is a genius (and if the book is even remotely autobiographical I’m impressed by the ease with which he used to get laid as a teenager!) and I’m hating on the book only because I’ve always liked The Rolling Stones so much better than the Beatles…