I have a confession to make that I actually haven't liked Murakami's writing until this point. I found “The Second Bakery Attack” confusing and Wild Sheep Chase was not much better in that respect. However, I really like Norwegian Wood!
Usually, I think judging a book as "realistic" or
not is difficult. Every work of fiction is fake in a sense. The earliest
(ancient greek and roman) definitions of “art” that I was given in a Lit Crit
class were “it is an imitation of real things.” It seems like there are many
ways that an artist can convince you their work is life-like, and this is not always by objectively sticking close to what reality looks like. It
might just be a matter of buying, or not buying, their illusion.
For the most part, I just enjoy the way female characters in
Norwegian Wood are written as opposed to how they were written in The Long
Goodbye and A Wild Sheep Chase. In Chandler's "Blondes" monologue,
what distinguishes different women from each other is the way it feels to be
with them: what they look like, how they act on a date, what kind of partners they will have, and so on. In A Wild Sheep Chase, the girlfriend's life outside of their romantic relationship is also fairly murky and unexplained. I
enjoy that in Norwegian Wood, I get information about the women's lives. They
each have an economic background, a family situation, and their own challenges
and pursuit of happiness. I can answer questions about how they live, eat, and
work, not just how they look or how they make the main character feel.
(As a note, I have more reservations now that I’ve read chapter 6, that piano girl scene did honestly throw me for a loop.)
I also just noticed another blog post admitting they did not like Murakami’s
writing, which is a funny coincidence!
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