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Review: Norwegian Wood

Author: Haruki Murakami
Original Title: Noruwei no Mori
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Translator: Alfred Binbaum
Publication Date: 1987
Published in English: 2000
Publisher: Kodansha
ISBN: ISBN 0-375-70402-7 (US edition)
           ISBN 0-09-944882-3 (UK edition)
           ISBN 4-06-203516-2 (JP edition)
 
Is that the title of The Beatles's song? Yep! but I'm not going to talk about it. Im talking about one of my favorite novel from Haruki Murakami. It's a story about a young, quite, and serious college student in Tokyo named Toru Watanabe who just loses his bestfriend Kizuki who took his own life when he was 17. Since Kizuki's death, Toru becomes close to Naoki, Kazuki's girlfriend whose emotionaly unstabil, because her big sister also suicided at 17, and Kazuki is not only becomes a boyfriend to her, he also a bestfriend to her. Kizuki and Naoko had been date since they are kids. They are so close, Kizuki is an active person, but it is always awkward to Naoko and Toru. Now, each Sundays morning, Toru and Naoko walk together since, but barely talk together. They become closer in a weird ways. Things get complicated at Naoko's 20 birthday night. They talk about how they really feel, and they finally having sex. At that time, Toru realizes that she is a virgin. At the morning Naoko's gone, she leaves him a letter, it said that she needs a time, also she is quitting college to go to a sanatorium.
While Toru worries about Naoko, come a new character. Her name is Midori Kobayashi, a tall beautiful girl with a short hair. She is an attractive and outgoing person, she also his classmate. Midori shares a lot of her complicated life story to Toru. She and her big sister run a small bookstore, but then her big sister getting married and Midori live by herself. But she already had a boyfriend.
Toru who really loves The Great Gatsby novel, become more confuse. And the story also become more complex.
This novel about love that end up tragic, hopeless, and about loss. The novel set in the late 1960s in Tokyo.
 
Quotes from Norwegian Wood:
"Only the Dead stay seventeen forever
"If you only read the book that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking"
"I don't care what you do to me, but I don't want you to hurt me. I've had enough hurt already in my life"
"The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living"
 

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He drinks beer, I drink water He is a movie director, I'm a highschool student He smokes, I hate ciggarate He lives in Myanmar, I live in Indonesia He loves party at night, I love sleep at night He has a black eyes, I have a brown eyes He is 29 years old, I'm 18 years old He loves sweet music, I love rock music He has a warm hands, I have a cold hands "thankyou so much for this whole week", "No, I'm the one who should say thankyou" :) thank you