Toru felt immense pain after listening to this song from the airplane. While it is not sure yet what kind of memory is concerned with this song, it is guessable that the song Norwegian Wood will somehow play a crucial role in the story at some point of time.
The
story is told in a form of flashback, as recollection of Toru Watanabe of his
college years. Toru, the narrator and the protagonist of the story, has
experienced the death of his best friend and sudden disappearance of the girl
he loves. He is the roommate of Storm Trooper, an eccentric figure who is being
made fun of by rest of the students in the dormitory, but at the same time he
hangs out with Nagasawa, an elite student well respected by the same students. From
Watanabe, the readers hear stories so distinctive that have no common ground whatsoever
except for Watanabe appearing in each of them. While these stories comprise the
fruitful part of his otherwise dull college life, these fruits are not
necessarily sweet – they constitute the bitter barrier that hinders him from
getting over his traumatic past, the death of Kizuki.
Essentially,
Kizuki’s death is responsible for the three significant interactions Toru has
formulated with other people. Toru and Naoko are bonded by the trauma they
share. Ironically, while Toru and Naoko left Kobe to leave behind past memories
that are related to Kizuki to evade the trauma, the relationship with a member
of the Kizuki trio became the most important one of all, at least for Toru. I
think this indicates how difficult – almost impossible – it is to forget the
memory of a deceased friend. They left Kobe in order to let go of the grief,
but they ended up cling onto a fragment of the bad memory, someone who can
share the sorrow and withstand the grief together. However, Naoko eventually
broke down and decided to run away from the trauma, leaving Toru behind by
himself. While Toru was comparatively less susceptible to the painful past,
this consequently broke him down as well, as the pain of losing grip of Naoko
that he grew to love had been accumulated to the original pain he was
suffering. Personally, I thought Toru’s recollection of the meadow closely
resembled that of Naoko’s on her 20th birthday. Both elaborate
rather insignificant minute details of the events, and consciously or
unconsciously avoid the important people in the event. This led me to think
that the state of 37-year old Toru after listening to The Beatles’
Norwegian Wood is similar to the
state of Naoko on her twentieth birthday. Definitely, Naoko is the key entity
of the pain of loss Toru feels along with the deceased Kizuki.
Naoko
and Kizuki comprise most of the pains Toru feels, but the other two
relationships also provide him with uneasiness that intensifies his
frustration. Storm Trooper’s eccentric nature has worked for Toru as a source
of Naoko’s smile, but his indifference to others’ views and feelings is giving
Toru a harder time after the sudden disappearance of Naoko. Watanabe
acknowledges Nagasawa’s competency as a student and skills as a womanizer, but
he decides to never fully expose his mind to Nagasawa after witnessing his
drunken tyranny towards a girl. This additionally triggers Watanabe to compare
Nagasawa to Kizuki, who was not as competent and skillful in speaking but much more
sincere and intimate with his friends. By making Toru encounter with a lamest
possible figure as a friend and a person more remarkable but lacking a fundamental
virtue, Murakami forces Toru to reevaluate and miss the late Kizuki, thereby
driving him into the deeper abyss. As of the end of chapter three, I think Toru
Watanabe has reached the very bottom of the well on the meadow in his
reminiscence, and I am very excited to unfold how he would overcome the
suffering and save Naoko from the well, and consequently save himself.
