As I read more of Norwegian Wood, I found myself having more thoughts on how the female characters behave or are chosen to be portrayed through the course of the narrative. Parts of it genuinely did make me raise my eyebrows, but I think that if I view how they are described as limits of Tooru’s narration and perspective, it gets more understandable. For instance, I never really felt like I understood Naoko, but then again, neither has Tooru. His own imperfections in his memory mean that the things that are the most clear about her are sex and her mental illness.
Another thing I’d like to comment on is why this could possibly be seen as a realist novel. Although I think the story has a lot of surreal elements, particularly what we discussed in class in regards to being between the living and the dead, the emotional thesis of ‘stuff in life happens since it does, no reason or explanation is required,’ felt more so true as I reached the end of the novel. Things that sort of stood out to me as awkward, such as Reiko and Tooru having sex, made more sense from that perspective— sex is as much a physical act as emotional. Given how much focus sex has in Tooru’s life through the book, for which he usually has not much of a reason for pursuing, reading their intimacy as another consequence of just being alive made sense.
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