fatvegan

Norwegian Wood is a pretty good book. I finished it last week after snuffling through it pretty quickly. I have trouble reading and finishing books these, and even though I didn't really like it at first and ended up being keen to get to the end. It's rather interesting because it has an intense atmosphere of autobiography, to the point that it starts to feel self-indulgent. But it actually isn't. The author did study in Tokyo, but that's the extent of the similarity.

The characters were very plain and offered no wisdom or insights. One of the things that really struck was the lack of substantive observation of the world. The characters were in they're late teens and they acted and talked exactly as people of that age would. That's a little surprising, because most authors want to look clever. There were long painful conversations where neither participate was making that much sense. When they discussed their feelings they used all the naive pop psychology that teenagers love. The author wasn't trying to make a comment about the world or offer insights into people. I really think the only thought on his mind was to tell the story. He said that he did it as an experiment because he'd never written a proper "novel" before that. It ended up selling far more copies than any of his other books.

The book was preoccupied with sex, which was a little unbecoming of writer of 50 or 60, but fitted the 20 year-old narrator perfectly. The fascination with sex mixed in with a desire to be adult and not become obsessed reminded me a lot of myself at that age. It was very similar to Youth in that respect, but without the amazing ponderings that Coetzee does so well. Some of the sex was really strange too. There was a several page long description of the "seduction" of a 30 year-old woman by a 13 year-old girl. The author offered no criticism or explanation. The main character just sat and listened to this older woman explain how her life had been ruined by a young girl who had seduced and had sex with her. She believed that girl was actually evil but was entranced by her beauty and confidence. The author doesn't offer any comfort by gently discrediting the woman. You actually have no idea what the author himself thinks about it.

It is also kind of a bloodbath. I knew suicide in Japan was common, but I didn't know it was quite like that. I'm assuming the book represents the situation in Japan in the 1970s, because everything else about it is so real. So most of the book was either reflecting on sadness or sex and more often both. For a book that is made up of personal reflection and thoughtful conversations the lack of actual insight is striking, and actually quite a credit to the author. I think this is the sort of book you get when a better than normal writer tries to write a normal book.