Norwegian Wood Limited Edition Box Set

Murakami, Haruki

ISBN 10: 1860468098 / ISBN 13: 9781860468094

Published by Harvill Press, 2003

Book is in good condition and may include underlining highlighting and minimal wear. The book can also include "From the library of" labels. May not contain miscellaneous items toys, dvds, etc. . We offer 100% money back guarantee and 24 7 customer service. Seller Inventory # ZEV.1860468098.G

Synopsis:

As his plane touches down in Hamburg one day, the Beatles song Norwegian Wood comes over the loudspeakers and Toru Watanabe is transported back to a meadow with his first love by his side, nearly 20 years before. Naoko had been the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki and, hearing her favourite song, releases a flood of memories of his life as a student, adrift in a world of confused emotions, casual sex, passion, loss and desire. It recalls, too, the time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marched into his life. As Watanabe approaches middle age, he is obliged to look back on the loves and passions of his earlier life and try to make sense of it all. Norwegian Wood, the book that made Murakami a household name in Japan, is a haunting study of first love and the search for identity in an impersonal modern society.

Review: "I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me" "Norwegian Wood" (Lennon/McCartney).

With Norwegian Wood Murakami, best known as the author of off-kilter classics such as the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland, finally achieved widespread acclaim in his native Japan. The novel sold upwards of 4 million copies and forced the author to retreat to Europe, fearful of the expectations accompanying his new-found cult status.

The novel is atypical for Murakami: seemingly autobiographical, in the tradition of many Japanese "I" novels, Norwegian Wood is a simple coming of age tale set, primarily, in 1969/70, the time of Murakami's own university years. The political upheavals and student strikes of the period form the backdrop of the novel but the focus here is the young Watanabe's love affairs and the pain (and pleasure) of growing up with all its attendant losses, (self-)obsessions and crises.

The novel is split into two volumes and beautifully presented here in a "gold" box containing both the green book and the red book. Young Japanese fans became so obsessed with the work that they would dress entirely in one or other colour denoting which volume they most identified with. And the novel is hugely affecting, reading like a cross between Plath's Bell Jar and Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women, if less complex and ultimately less satisfying than Murakami's other, more allegorical, work. He captures the huge expectation of youth, and of this particular time in history, for the future and for the place of love in it. He also saturates the work with sadness, an emotion that can cripple a novel but which here underscores the poignancy of the work's rather thin subject matter. --Mark Thwaite

Bibliographic Details

Title: Norwegian Wood Limited Edition Box Set
Publisher: Harvill Press
Publication Date: 2003
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: good