Isn't it good? · 2008-01-23 11:46
I stayed up last night to finish off Murakami's Norwegian Wood and I must say it touched me in a way I didn't expect.
The theme that I got from it was one of isolation - the book made me re-experience some of the feelings I felt over Teresa when I was about the same age as the books protagonist Toru.
Basically, I was 19 and totally in love, even though I had only known her for about 6 months. She left to marry another guy, and I moved to a different city, shut myself in my apartment for 2 years and didn't come out or talk to anyone in that entire time. Isolation and alienation, that book bought all of those feelings flooding back.
But I did a hell of a lot of programming as a way to try and cope, so I guess something good came out of that in the end - I got a career.
How can it be that a book can have such an effect, that so many years after an event and after how much I've changed I can still relate? Am I still the same after all, am I just dealing with the same shit differently now?
Somehow, I get the feeling that I'm just as isolated as ever, but I have smoke and mirrors in the form of weekends in Sydney to mask it.
Definitely powerful stuff, for me anyway. That guy is a great author, I can't wait to read something else of his.
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