Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (Book Review)
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- čas přidán 20. 02. 2023
- Hello everyone and welcome some more life lessons gleaned from books.
Big thank you to those who kept recommending me Norwegian Wood. Finally, I bought myself a copy to have in my own Murakami collection.
This one was a doozy. Lots of major life themes about primarily, making the choice to "choose good - choose life" and all that it entails - the good and the bad; the great people and the worst people who enter our lives and make it better - or turn it upside down. Ultimately, it's how we choose to look at life that will help us go on our path. The women in this book have been scarred by the men in their lives: some can handle it, others can’t. But, women can also have their own dark sides.
There's strong themes here in this book, death, grief, mental illness, pedophilia, social isolation, depression, PTSD, trauma, sex. Ultimately, it's about life and how the main character who goes through his personal demons to transform into adulthood.
My lesson is that ultimately, everyone is grieving in some way. Everyone is suffering their own trauma in some way. Everyone is dealing with their demons in their own way. Others cannot move or grow from it - others can by using others for their gain, while others accept it as something that happened in their life but which does not define them.
This book reminded me of Anton Checkhov's short story, A Nervous Breakdown where I likened the highly empath character of Vasily in it to Murakami's Naoko. Both characters trying to make sense of the world but at the same time extricating themselves from it because it's too overwhelming for them to understand the actions of others towards females. It also has a heavy influence of my favourite book of all time, The Catcher in the Rye. Toru Watanabe is Vasiley who is Holden Caulfield.
But what’s the connection to The Great Gatsby?! You’ll have to find out because I’m now in the middle of reading that.
Over to you. Have you read this book?
What are some of the life lessons you got out of it?
#reading #books #bookreviews #literature #booktube #lifelessons #lifelessonsthroughbooks #activatelearning #helenblunden #murakami #norwegianwood
have read many books and encountered many characters ; Midori is my best of the best character of all time.
I imagined Nagasawa as Willem Defoe and not once did he ever say or do anything that broke character
lmao my idea of him couldn't have been further from defoe. i love it.
Loved this review of Norwegian Wood. Love this book!
Thank you!! 🙏
Wonderful review of one of my favorites. Thank you for your insight.
Thank you for watching!
You'll be right, that phrase brought me back to my time in the southern hemisphere
I loved the review and the mention of of The Nervous Breakdown, which I will read. I think as a 20 something hearing the breakdown of the book from someone who’s lived it really helps me grasp the concepts present better. I will definitely check out more of your reveiws to find more books
Thank you for watching and sharing your feedback. Always appreciated 😊🙏
Your review is amazing, I haven't noticed the cover had 3 pairs of legs until you mentioned, always thought they were trees too, it makes a good summary of the book.
Thanks for watching and sharing your feedback. I like to look at book covers. Sometimes you can tell what the book is about from them but most times, they can be quite enigmatic.
Nice review thanks.
I like her psychological life lessons approach. to help digest this book and its characters.
Thank you for watching and sharing a comment. Always greatly appreciated. 😀
!!! i know this book has a lot of mixed reviews, but i loved it so much! my fav read from 2022 for sure, felt like i was transported to japan while reading, his writing is amazing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and i also thought the cover was a forest haha, perhaps it’s meant to be both!
Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts. So many people recommended it to me that it had to be read. I’m now reading the Great Gatsby trying to see the connection as to why Watanabe was reading it all the time.
@@LifeLessonsFromBooks Thats awesome, i also planned on reading the great gatsby some time this year, looking forward to ur review!
Such a passionate and amazing review! I loved how you discovered the similarities between those other 2 books. I read The Men Without Women by Murakami - a short story collection that is also made into a movie titled Drive My Car. You might be interested in checking it out if you have not done yet.
Hi there. Thanks for this feedback. I truly appreciate it especially when my review was so long. I appreciate that you took the time to listen and share it. Yeah I love Murakami and only read 4 of his books so far. The Men Without Women was superb. I did a review of it too. It was some time back. czcams.com/video/CJ1SO3uYUHs/video.html I’m looking forward to reading more. I love how he puts literature and music into work evoking the memories and feelings of the scene.
Hello Helen, I very much appreciate what you are doing with your page. I am attempting something similar with my own page, and it is inspiring that you showcase a love of reading and learning! My thoughts were that I love reading, and I have too many books as it is, what the heck let's read them together! Thanks for sharing!
Wonderful idea Jerrod to share your love of reading too. I’ll check out your channel too. There’s tons of books and learning to share. Hope your reading and sharing adventure here on CZcams is fun for you. Who’s your favourite author or what’s your favourite book?
@@LifeLessonsFromBooks Thank you so much for your reply! It's hard to say which authors are my favorite, I guess I lean towards old classics, as well as ancient works and history books. Sometimes I'll finish an amazing book, not even notice the author and the book is off to the bookshelf. I would have to take a good look and reconstruct my reading list to truly know! Making the youtube page is forcing me to do research on each author, and is bringing new depth to my previously read books and understanding. Each book seems to carry with it life lessons, and bits of wisdom that get logged away somewhere in the subconscious!
@@LifeLessonsFromBooks What brings you back to reading and writing? Was it always a passion, or is it something that you discovered along the way?
I can definitely resonate with that especially finding the authors on my own shelves! 🤣
I’ve always been reading and writing ever since a kid. I’m focused on it more now ever since I got rid of social media. Luckily I pick up a book more than my phone now. 🤣
this review was amazing, i just finished this book today and was getting depressed but somehow this video helped me
Oh I’m so glad it helped. Yes some books can get sad and depressing but I think they’re meant to teach us something in the process too. I like to flip it around. Sure we feel sad for the characters but hopefully there’ll always be something else to take away from the book that we pause, reflect and learn about ourselves or our world.
It was an okayish book, but i do feel like Murakami definitely has some fantasies he lives out in his books. Some scenes (esp where he was describing the 13 year old) were uncomfortable and uncalled for.
Wow...the cover art reviel is amazing. I thought it was trees in the woods too, but i can see the legs and feet facing forward....i dont undersrand toru as a character, and how he connects around with so many women....but i wanted him to move on and do better. The ending didnt quite make sense to me
It's a good review. I personally don't like Norwegian Wood, I hate Toru, haven't read a more immature character. Can imagine what Midori felt as a character. I am a woman who has suffered from clinical depression due to men like him.
Plus, when I read a book by a japanese author, I want to feel the true essence of Japan not a medley of Japan with western influences. He is good but not your typical Japanese author. I prefer Natsume Soseki and Yasunari Kawabata (Snow Country) over him anyday. Though I do like it when Murakami gets surreal like in Hard Boiled. I liked his IQ84 as well.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you also for the additional author recommendations. I will definitely look them up as I like to read novels based in Japan.
I thought the book was a fun read but relatively shallow. The main character was relatable (unfortunately) but the story for the most part felt like depression p*rn. Books like No Longer Human and The Blind Owl portray NW's themes much more fluently and originally.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts of the book here and also recommending a couple of new ones especially from a Japanese and Iranian author. I’ve added these to a list I compile based on what viewers of this channel recommend to me to read. 🙏 . www.goodreads.com/review/list/7228482?shelf=life-lessons-viewers-love&sort=date_added&order=d
One of the main takeaways from the book is that Toru chose life (Midori represents life and hope) instead of sinking like his friends. To call it depression porn is ironically shallow in itself and misses the entire point of the book. The book is incredibly deep in meaning and deals with some heavy topics in a realistic and relatable way.