Wayland Smith's Reviews > Norwegian Wood

I read this to satisfy a part of a reading challenge; it's not my usual kind of story. Toru Watanabe is a college student in Tokyo who reminds me a bit of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. He's a very smart but curiously passive as an unusual life happens around him.

He has a bizarre roommate nicknamed Storm Trooper who has odd routines. One of Toru's best friends dies early in the story and young, leaving a very strange relationship between Toru and Naoko, his friends girlfriend who has some very odd mental problems. Toru falls for her and is very supportive of her as she's in the hospital, but that doesn't stop him from sleeping with a collection of random girls. Then he meets Midori, a very strange young lady.

Toru tries to finish his classes, write to Naoko and visit her and her roommate/fellow patient Reiko, and then explore things with Midori as odd events and lots of minor character deaths happen all around him. By the end of the book, little has worked out like I'd expect, and I kept waiting for him to DO something.

It's a coming of age tale in another country and other culture from mine, maybe that's why I didn't connect better. It is very well written, it just didn't strike a spark with me.