The Transition to Adulthood in Norwegian Wood (Elliot)

 It took me a while to absorb and process Norwegian Wood, because I didn't fully understand why I was so moved by it myself. The novel obviously deals with heavy topics (4 separate suicides is certainly the most I've seen in a while,) and I enjoyed the romance, but what I reacted most strongly to was the sense of isolation I felt through all of the main cast. All of them struggle to form healthy interpersonal relationships, and I got the sense that many lacked a real sense of direction in life. It came off to me as similar in structure to a story about adolescence, but set in college instead of middle or high school, in that a lot of characters don't understand how to process their transition to adulthood and independence. Additionally, I think Murakami is wonderfully illustrative when it comes to portraying the chain of innocuous events that make up everyday life. Tooru's doesn't understand what he wants to do with his life, and he's held back by waiting for Naoko's recovery. This causes him to avoid opening up to his peers, and perhaps stops him from living a fulfilling life. He just goes through the motions, winding his clock, and Murakami's narration really let me feel the passage of time throughout this period in his life, which conveyed this profound sadness. While I felt myself most drawn to Tooru, the other characters felt very compelling as expressions of the difficulty of this transition: Naoko's struggles with trauma prevent her from accepting it, Midori revels in her newfound freedom and lives only for the present, and Nagasawa's self-centeredness leads him to reject interpersonal connections. I'd really like to reread the book and examine all of them more closely.