Key themes
- Grief, loss and the impossibility of rescue
- Sexual intimacy as a form of connection and of failure
- The past that cannot be released
About this book
A tender, melancholy story of first love and loss in 1960s Tokyo; the most grounded of Murakami's novels.
Published in 1987, Norwegian Wood sold four million copies in Japan in its first year, making Murakami a reluctant celebrity. The title comes from the Beatles song. He has said it was an intentional experiment in realism.
Discussion questions
- The novel begins with a middle-aged Toru hearing a song that returns him to his youth and grief. What does Murakami achieve with this retrospective frame — and how does it change the emotional register of events?
- Naoko is damaged in ways that Toru cannot reach or heal. What does the novel say about the limits of love — specifically, whether love can rescue someone determined to go under?
- Midori is everything Naoko is not — alive, demanding, direct. How does Murakami use the contrast between these two women — and what does Toru's choice say about what he wants from life?
- The novel is unusual in Murakami's work for its realism — there are no magical events. How does this restraint serve the story of grief and depression he is telling?
- Norwegian Wood made Murakami famous in Japan and briefly embarrassed him — the scale of its success felt wrong to him. What in the novel do you think speaks so directly to its readers?
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Books that make a good pairing or natural follow-up.
Often taught together
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This is a set text
Norwegian Wood appears on the following curriculum reading lists.
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