Blog 4: Food in Murakami & Carver's Work

 “The Second Bakery Attack” is probably one of my favorite of Murakami’s short stories I’ve read. It’s very absurd in its subject matter, but I felt drawn to, and even inspired by, the spontaneity and boldness of the finale. To me, it felt encouraging to do something extremely drastic to signify some kind of change in your life and to prevent you from getting stuck in a loop of repetition or stagnancy. I also see food as a medium that one seeks closure through; Boku seeks closure to his prior hunger that never was assuaged, while in Carver’s “A Small Good Thing,” the birthday cake offers the couple a kind of closure as well. The medium of food is also a shared medium and/or experience, and I believe this greatly affects the experience of the reader in making them more empathetic towards the narrative. In both these stories, it’s apparent how much food is able to play a role in humanizing each character’s experience, providing another layer to their narrative. I think that is why these readings appealed to me so much. Referencing culturally significant foods, like McDonalds or even a birthday cake, resonates more deeply with the audience, as they are more easily related to the narrative. The birthday cake scene in Carver’s story was especially felt for me; birthday cakes hold such an important place in my heart and carry many happy memories, and so I can’t imagine the pain or grief felt during that final scene. 

Shi Shi

Kafka's Metamorphosis

 I thought Kafka’s Metamorphosis raised an interesting point that the way one changes affects others more than it does oneself. It seems as though the person who changed most was not Gregor, but each member of his family. While his body now resembles an insect, Gregor’s mind remains the same. He rations and emotes just like he did as a human; he still cares very fondly for his family and even ruminates on his adult responsibilities. Each of his family members, however, transition from loving and concerned to cold and almost disgusted by Gregor. The newly-turned beetle notes this attitude on numerous occasions, conceding that the maid was the only person who treated him somewhat normally. The family is so provoked by Gregor’s new exterior that they no longer regard him as their son. While Murakami’s take on Gregor Samsa assumes quite a different tone, namely one of humor, he still hints at themes of the Samsa family’s detachment by omitting their presence altogether. Perhaps Gregor’s connection with the maid parallels his spark with the hunchback lady, ultimately suggesting that he can more easily connect to strangers than he can to people close to him who are more volatile to his transformations. 

- Agnes

Murakami and His Music and food

 I think it's crazy how it's insanely easy to overlook a big detail in a story. When I see the name of musical pieces I don't even think about it or what it means or what it adds to a story. It has been insanely eye opening the way that Murakami uses music to convey a tone or moment or emotion in the story. I think it is interesting also how he similarly uses food as a means of bringing the audience into the story.

I believe that in Murakami, he uses food and music interchangeably - based on the situation- to allow the audience to relate to the characters in different ways. It is common knowledge that food brings people together, and in many situations Murakami uses food as a way to denote a character's social relationships. We see this in the year of spaghetti, he uses the process of making and earring food as a way to show how lonely the character is and how he is using the spaghetti as a way to both escape his loneliness and settle into his loneliness. Alternatively, he uses music as a way to show a character's inner state, their emotions, their thought processes and their mood. We see this in Norwegian Wood when Naoko explains how the song makes her feel as though she was in a forest walking alone, and this could be seen as an allegory for her actual state of mind and foreshadowing for how she would die.

 

                                                                                                                            Kashai

Murakami Looking Back and Similarities Between The Second Bakery Attack and A Small, Good Thing

Murakami's The Second Bakery Attack opens with the narrator looking back and reflecting whether or not it was "the right choice when [he] told [his] wife about the bakery attack." The story opens not with the events of the story, but rather the narrator reflecting on the inciting incident of the story. Thus, the story is set not as something that is currently happening, but rather something that already happened. However, the narrative switches to focus purely on the chronological events of the plot. For the reader, or at least me, this almost makes me forget that the story is being told in the past. The same thing can be seen happening in Murakami's Norwegian Wood. Norwegian Wood begins with Watanabe as a middle age man in an airport reflecting on his experience in college. After the first chapter, Watanabe as a middle age man is not mentioned again. I believe Murakami introduced context to his story because it allows him to be introspective. 

The Second Bakery Attack begins as follows, "I'm still not sure I made the right choice when I told my wife about the bakery attack. But then, it might not have been a question of right and wrong. Which is to say that wrong choices can produce right results, and vice versa. I myself have adopted the position that, in fact, we never choose anything at all. Things happen. Or not."

This quote sets the tone and overall theme of what this work is going to be. The Second Bakery Attack is riddled with this sense of lack of autonomy. They can't choose what to eat, they can't attack a bakery because they're all closed, they can't go to a restaurant, they simply have to follow what is happening. They don't choose anything at all, they're just doing what they have to do. Murakami introducing this concept at the beginning of the story, cements its importance to the reader and makes them pay attention to traces of that theme in the story. However, he would not have been able to do this if he directly told the story. The introspection would feel off. It would feel just like an unnatural author injection, since the narrator doesn't know what has happened yet. However, since this has already happened to the narrator, he can be introspective because he knows what happened and how it affected him. 

Now, I would like to mention a similarity I saw between The Second Bakery Attack and A Small, Good One. As mentioned, the first paragraph of The Second Bakery Attack lays out the theme of the story. "... we never choose anything at all. Things happen. Or not." I believe this is the same theme that is present in A Small, Good One. After the Baker and Ann/Howard finally meet, the Baker realizes how he had been essentially terrorizing this couple going grieving the lost of their child. He says, "Now, I'm just a baker. That don't excuse my doing what I did, I know. But I'm deeply sorry. I'm sorry for your son, and sorry for my part in this... I'm not an evil man, I don't think. Not evil, like you said on the phone. You got to understand what it comes down to is I don't know how to act anymore, it would seem. Please, let me ask you if you can find it in your hearts to forgive me?" The Baker can't control that their child died. The Baker can't take back his stand-offish nature on the phone, he was just doing his job of making sure a client got their product. All he can do is deal with what is happening now. He feels morally obligated to apologize and make the situation right, he didn't necessarily have a conscious choice in it. Murakami saw this theme in A Small, Good One and seemingly build The Second Bakery Attack around it, drowning their character's in a lack of choice and regret. 

- Cam Hoff 

Making references his own

 I am so impressed by Haruki Murakami’s ability to use literary and real world references in his work but make them completely unique and his own. I know he has been doing this for many of the short stories we have been reading—most recently the zoo attack, the bakery attack, the ferris wheel, etc—but those references were not as well known to me. When I saw that we are reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Haruki Murakami’s Samsa in Love for this Wednesday, I was honestly skeptical that Murakami’s short story could use such a classic, well-known, and well-written piece of fiction, and turn it into a short story that adds something and feels unique in its own right. But he did it! Just the (seemingly) simple idea of reversing the metamorphosis—having the insect George Samsa turned into in the original, instead turn into George Samsa—really added a unique perspective and insight into the themes of the original story. I think my favorite part of the short story is when the woman says to Samsa, “It’s strange, isn’t it? Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try and fix it…But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart” (11). I thought that his short story was a little more hopeful than Kafka’s. Whereas Kafka’s Samsa is alone in his kindness/thoughtfulness, the Samsa in this story is met with the woman’s own thoughtfulness.

-Hallie Baker

Cooking and loneliness

I think Haruki Murakami's descriptions of loneliness are always connected with cooking. Before I explain, let me first define what loneliness means to me. To me, loneliness mainly refers to moments when I'm alone and free to think. For example, nobody feels lonely when sleeping, because that's unconscious, or during busy work hours. Actually, I used to enjoy cooking a lot, so I deeply relate to this. In "The Year of Spaghetti," Murakami mentions that most people think cooking is something you do for multiple people. That's true, and such thinking comes from ideas about efficiency. Cooking takes a lot of time—buying groceries, washing vegetables, cooking, and then cleaning dishes afterward. Each step takes considerable time, and cooking for more people doesn't really increase that time significantly. Therefore, cooking only for oneself seems like a luxurious waste of time in our fast-paced society. Speaking of cooking, much of the time is spent waiting or not thinking too much, especially after becoming skilled. You wait for oil to heat, water to boil, pasta to cook, etc. Unfortunately, during these times, you often can't leave the stove to do something else, so I spend a lot of time zoning out or thinking. I think these long periods of contemplation make a person seem even lonelier.

(Attachment: a picture I saw online that I found kind of interesting)

Mingyuan Sun

This Is Not a Sheep

I spent most of A Wild Sheep Chase fruitlessly chasing the sheep — not just literally, along with Boku, but also symbolically. I wanted to know what it meant. I kept waiting for a grand revelation at the end, but instead, I was left slightly unsatisfied. Was I supposed to crack it? Or was the sheep never meant to symbolize anything in the first place? 

Literary scholar Yoshio Iwamoto notes that “Murakami himself has admitted the sheep” “was used primarily in the spirit of a game, without any deep significance” (Iwamoto, p. 300). Readers and critics have tried to assign symbolic meaning to it — perhaps it represents lost youth, modernization, or power — but, as Iwamoto suggests, “the clues lead nowhere,” and the narrative ends in “decentering and dispersal” (p. 300). I would argue that this lack of closure isn’t an accident, but rather, a feature of this novel as a work of postmodern literature. 

As Mary Klages explains, postmodernism “doesn’t lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates that” (Klages, p. 2). She writes that postmodern thought denies the old belief that “language must be transparent; it must function only to represent the real/perceivable world,” and instead asserts that “there are only signifiers, with no signifieds” (p. 4). In other words, the sheep does not point to a hidden truth. Instead, it points to our desire for meaning and subsequent postmodernist rejection of that promise. 

That might sound frustrating (and it is) — but maybe, that frustration is the point. We’ve been trained by traditional narratives to expect that mysteries should have solutions and that symbols should “mean” something. Murakami subverts that expectation. Even though the novel is set up as a detective-style chase, it offers no real clues and no satisfying conclusion. I kept wondering whether I missed something. In the end, it seems that wondering is the whole experience.

                                                                                                                    Irina

The Sheep as the Modernist Grand Narrative and Its Rejection

Postmodernism is a philosophical, cultural, and artistic movement that emerged in reaction to modernism’s emphasis on logic, progress, reason, and overarching “grand narratives,” a term argued by Francois Lyotard. In contrast, postmodernism is skeptical of totalizing explanations, instead favoring fragmentation, multiplicity, subjectivity, and blurred boundaries. Rather than embracing “grand narratives” – “the stories a culture tells itself about its practices and beliefs” – postmodern thought accepts that life is made up of many subjective experiences, not a single unifying truth, (Postmodernism, Dr. Klages, 4). A Wild Sheep Chase is a story that rejects “grand narratives,” and instead exemplifies how a single story isn’t able to explain everything.

The sheep with the star-shaped birthmark functions as a metaphor for the idea of “grand narratives.” It is a totalizing power that offers promises too good to be true in exchange for complete submission. Its possession strips its host of their autonomy and feeds them visions of greatness, purpose, or transformation. This mirrors how grand narratives require ideological submission and in return present satisfying but simple answers to grand problems. Additionally, Lyotard argues that “all aspects of modern societies… depend on grand narratives,” similarly to how the sheep depends on human hosts to execute its plans, (Postmodernism, Dr. Klages, 4). Both the sheep and grand narratives offer simple overarching explanations to difficult questions, which is seductive but ultimately hollow. 

Boku, the main character in A Wild Sheep Chase, goes through the majority of the story assuming that all he has to do is find the sheep and he can go back to his life of passivity. However, it is not so simple. When he eventually confronts the grand narrative (sheep) it is already gone. His friend that was the most recent host has killed himself and taken the sheep along with him. The sheep and the grand narrative is dead, and the answers Boku received from The Rat aren’t satisfying nor simple. Shortly after, the book ends with Boku crying on a thin shoreline. The grand narrative, which was supposed to put his life back on track, instead was rejected, leaving Boku almost certainly more fragmented than whole by the end of the story. In fact, Dance Dance Dance is primarily about Boku’s search for A Wild Sheep Chase’s loose end, his girlfriend, thus, showing his departure from passivity after the rejection of the sheep.

Connor Friedman 

 Cindy/Jiahan's blog post 4:

Finding Balance in Absurdity and Sorrow:

Both Murakami’s The Second Bakery Attack and Raymond Carver’s A Small Good Thing revolve around a shared theme: hunger and solace, loneliness and human connection — the ways we search for a small measure of goodness in the face of absurdity or sorrow. In these two short stories, the protagonists struggle against a sudden shift in fate and luck, finding themselves paralyzed, unable to respond swiftly — a delay that deepens the confusion and emotional turmoil within them. While Murakami's The Second Bakery Attack wraps a past symbolic hunger and personal loneliness in dreamy and whimsical layers, Carver reveals bare pain and the yearning for a gone, cherished presence with stillness, cold clarity, and stark realism. In addition, Murakami addresses symbolic hunger through an absurd, ceremonial act — a mystical and metaphorical robbery — which ultimately serves as a means to bring the newlyweds closer together; Carver, on the other hand, searches for a fleeting glimmer of goodness in the immediate aftermath of the loss of a beloved, innocent child. Both stories seek a form of healing — a process gently imbued with the warm, lingering scent of human warmth.

Doppelgänger and "the Sputnik Sweetheart"

Intriguing and amusingly, the conception of Doppelgänger （“A Doppelgänger is a person who looks exactly like someone else but is not related to them. In stories and myths, a doppelgänger is often a mysterious or ghost-like double of a person. It can represent a hidden side of someone, or a part of themselves they don’t understand. Sometimes, meeting a doppelgänger is seen as a sign of bad luck or a deep change”）appears several times in our readings by far, as in Poe's "William Wilson", and in "the Sputnik Sweetheart". The theme of Doppelgänger is frequently used in many literary and artistic works and myths (like in Motojirō Kajii's The Ascension of K, or K's Drowning, and Franz Schubert's Der Doppelgänger) which often symbolizes death, split of the self, or encountering the otherworldly. In Murakami’s work, encountering a Doppelgänger creates a dreamlike and ambivalent boundary between reality and the subconscious, evoking a sense of existential dislocation and emotional estrangement.

Film Naoko and Midori

             What was immediately striking to me were the portrayals of Naoko and Midori, particularly the former. In the book proper, she is communicated entirely through the eyes of Toru; we have no particular agency of observation, no way of escaping the biases and sensitivities of this story’s boku, and so can only see Naoko for what she is to him, not for ourselves. The movie, I think, was so surprising in its casting/ directing choices surrounding Naoko merely because it was our first time seeing her as an independent body, one which permits the formation of an individual opinion. I could not help but think that “everything felt so much less awkward in the novel,” despite so little of the characters themselves changing, and I think much of it is to do with the radical shift from inner to outer—something I didn’t realize was so central to the text until I saw otherwise. As in the book, Naoko and Toru reunite, take scenic walks together, celebrate her birthday, and intimately confront one another through sex, but it is without the unmoving silences and nervous, meek deliveries filtered out of novel-Toru’s limited (and biased) sense-perception (and so, ours). Toru affords Naoko all of the grace and patience available, but the film, in its wholly different state, hands that power to us as well; we are free to consume and analyze Naoko unmediated. Her body language and gaze are on full display, and the pauses in conversation where the next move is hers, when she weakly performs her desire to be closer to Toru, when the two are sharing a moment that altogether would feel warm with a different couple (such as Toru and Midori), she relays messages of discomfort, repression—she is more observably mentally ill. The chemistry between the two struggles to burgeon, and interactions are (intentionally) left feeling forced or incorrect; something is missing.

            Midori, by contrast, is sharp and active, carrying herself with a vitality that brings a certain freshness to scenes with Toru. Where Naoko is seen inhabiting nature (the Hostel), a grayer piece of familiar life in this new, other world, Midori is nature, or at least an agent of it, and is participant in the act of being alive. She’s confident and inappropriate, talking of sex with little regard for social (cultural, not essentially natural) conventions, and is ever willing to decry unfairness or maltreatment (like in her laments of the university’s political organizations); she is subject to no one’s ideology but her own. Her mind is natural, untouched by the wills of others, entirely self-sustaining, and therefore admirable. She attracts Toru quickly and is portrayed, at least to me, in a more feminine way than her original literary counterpart, her genuine unfetteredness accompanying (or maybe, rather, manifesting) an execution of lithe femininity. The cinematography also contributes another dimension to Midori’s significance—and connection to nature—in its use of color. Green permeates the film, following Toru through Tokyo, to the Hostel, and into Midori’s home, her balcony of thriving plants the backdrop of their first kiss. Where green is found, life follows, and in the urbanity of Tokyo living, it is concentrated around her.

 

                                                                                                                                        Ryan

Norwegian Wood Adaptation

I feel like any attempt to place Murakami's writing into cinematic adaptation may fall flat at times. Especially given the plot of Norwegian Wood, which is has a very minimal plot line and relies heavily on Toru's inner dialogue. I felt about this movie similar to how I reacted to Drive my Car, a movie that on its own is fine, but that leaves out so many significant details or just altogether changes them. I find Murakami's writing to be a means of escape, you get so caught up in his character's inner turmoil that you're able to forget your own, and although this is the effect that a movie tends to have on me, I completed missed that feeling watching this adaptation. 

I think much of the enjoyment I derive from the novel is the complexities Murakami lends to his three female leads. While Naoko and Midori are consistent character wise in the films adaptation, I didn't find their characters to be as compelling. Midori lacked a bit of the grit I felt she had in the novel. Then in terms of Reiko's backstory, there was very little depicted of her, which I feel is an integral part of the novel's plot line that was just disregarded in the movie. Then, Naoko and Toru's love story portrayal felt overly erotic and forced, gimmicky, and a little too much for my taste. Their whole dynamic reminded me of Twilight, which I feel is a bit misrepresentative of Murakami's writing. Nevertheless, the movie was definitely very pretty with really nice shots and a great soundtrack (thank you Jonny Greenwood), and I'm sure the adaptation was an honest attempt at adapting a writing style not very conducive to film. 

- Gia

Norwegian Wood (the film)

I do not like the movie version of "Norwegian Wood". It is only acceptable. I think turning a book into a movie is not pleasant. Much of a book is completed by the reader's own imagination. This makes it hard to please everyone. I was not pleased by the movie. I think the actors are acceptable except for Naoko. Midori’s casting is very lively. I think the biggest problem of the movie is its editing. It cuts either too much or too little. The movie is 2 hours long. It cannot be any longer. The choice of content is confusing. For example, completely cutting Reiko is acceptable (although I liked her parts in the book). It is regrettable that there is not enough time to show Midori's charm. Her special quality of saying she hates her parents and not fearing death is not fully conveyed. I think the movie is very fast-paced to advance the plot. This causes Toru's loneliness to not be fully shown. There are other details. For example, after Toru falls asleep in the room of Reiko and Naoko, he wakes up and talks with Naoko. Naoko speaks in a whispering tone for too long. It is uncomfortable to watch. I think the movie might have felt better if I had not read the book twice.

Mingyuan Sun

Music (For a Film): Johnny Greenwood's Score Outshines Norwegian Wood

 I couldn’t think of a better person to score Norwegian Wood than Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. His compositions often have the same melancholic yet stirring mood that defines Murakami’s writing. His work on this film is no exception – it is understated and quietly heartbreaking. The score does not overpower the scenes but instead seeps into them seamlessly, infusing them with an unspoken sadness.

Then there’s the interesting connection (at least to me) between Norwegian Wood’s soundtrack and Radiohead’s Present Tense. Greenwood’s Mata Ai Ni Kuru Kara Ne and Iiko Dakara Damattete share nearly the exact same chord progression as Present Tense (and both are even in the same key that Radiohead plays live). In my estimation, given that early versions of Present Tense probably existed long before it was released on A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016, it’s very possible that Greenwood wrote the progression first, used it for the film, and later repurposed it for Radiohead. I thought this was pretty neat. 

While the score does a lot of heavy lifting, I found that the film itself struggles. It’s visually stunning, of course. But the pacing is strange and some characters, especially Midori and Reiko become sort of lifeless and flat. To me, one of the most well-executed and powerful aspects of the novel is how it portrays Watanabe’s emotional state – not just his profound grief that strips him of his sense of purpose but also the contradictions within him. In the novel, Watanabe is both reflective and impulsive, emotionally numb at times yet deeply affected by others at other times. The novel brilliantly puts the reader inside Watanabe's head, thus allowing them to experience how grief affects his whole perception of the world. The film, unfortunately, struggles with that. To be fair, this was exactly what I expected from a film adaptation of a Murakami novel – I feel like it is very difficult to translate his introspective narration to the screen.

                                                                                                                            Irina

Norwegian Wood Thoughts

    While I found the movie to be a suitable movie adaptation, I don’t think it serves as an effective stand in for the book. If we’re strictly speaking from a plot and enjoyment standpoint, it checked all the boxes for me, matching the overall tone and emotional sentiments the book evokes. However, it lacks many of the literary elements that give the book so much additional depth.

The largest of these, which would be impossible for any movie, is the sense of time passing the book employs. Much of Watanabe's experience throughout the book is spent going through the motions of life without really experiencing his formative college years. The movie makes a good attempt by showing scenes of school life where his peers engage in lively conversation and protestors run past him as he sits solemnly eating or something like that, but we don’t get the same sense of the years slipping by. We miss out on that acute loneliness he feels during the periods where Midori doesn’t call him since the movie simply edits past it. This is obviously just a practical problem but I still think it changes the overall experience. 

Additionally, the movie, aside from maybe one mention, loses the Germany/France connection we discussed so much in class. They even took out Storm Trooper! This was the strangest change to me since not only did he provide some necessary comic relief, he was the basis of a lot of Watanabe’s conversations with Naoko and Midori and gave an idea of what they found charming about him. 

I enjoyed the movie and found the casting, set design and score really effective, but I’m not sure Murakami’s stories are really designed to be told through this medium. 

-joe

On Norwegian Wood Film

When I first watched the film adaptation, I felt it's a strange film. I thought the film will help me understand the book, but I was very wrong. Now having read the book, I realize the film itself is confusing. First, some of the scenes move too fast without serving much purposes. For example, the scene where Storm Trooper asks Toru to get up and exercise with him is too short to develop Storm Trooper as a character. If I'm not mistaken, this scene is not from the book. Forcing Toru to do what he enjoys doing makes Storm Trooper appear annoying, which is very different from Murakami's portrayal. A better depiction of Storms Trooper can be showing his unwillingness to skip the jumping part of his morning exercise to show his stubbornness. The scene is followed by an even shorter scene of Toru swimming in the pool. I would argue this scene is significant in terms of contrasting with the previous pool scene with Naoko and Kizuki, but it's too fleeting to make a meaningful connection, especially without any dialogue or monologue. I would argue that a lot of silent scenes are empty and unnecessary, not developing characters or moving the plot forward.

With that being said, however, some of the shots are worth exploring. For example, the shot at 38 minutes when Toru receives Naoko's letter and goes up the stairs, the spinning of the staircase scene demonstrates Toru's excitement, and it gives the audience context of how Toru feels about Naoko.

I understand it is difficult to make a film out of Norwegian Wood because of Boku's rich internal dialogue. The scene where Boku and Midori kiss on the balcony with Midori is a good example to illustrate this point. The movie moves on without Boku's monologue about his feeling of the kiss, which is important to show how Boku feels toward Midori and the two characters' development later. Anyways, I would not recommend this film, whether you read the book or not.

-- Xiaoya

 Cindy/Jiahan Lyu's blog post 3 on the movie:

I feel that the movie contains some praiseworthy credits yet overall it feels insufficient and lacks of something. For example, there are key elements not presented in the movie, which i think is quite important, such as Naoko's butterfly barrette (we discussed in class that butterfly implies death in Japanese culture, I am also thinking that maybe it is a symbol related to the Greek word "psyche", which means both "soul/mind" and "butterfly", since the whole book is as a recollection in Watanabe's mind, the butterfly might as well has some greek root in it), Watanabe and Midori briefly kissing each other while watching a fire burning (which is replaced by raindrops falling in the movie), and so on. I also think that the movie is a little rush and if it can pace down, it would convey more surrealistic and mystic vibe in the novel.

But I do like how they film Naoko in the movie, which makes me think that the girl is really Naoko. The movie successfully brings Naoko to screen and unfolds her characters, pain, and mental disease well, which really draws me.

And Another thing I enjoy is how they consistently creates a disharmony between rapid and active student movement around Watanabe and Watanabe's isolation from all these passionate movement, which gives the audience some historical background, while reflects the wandering state of mind of Watanabe. An outsider, we could say.

Last but not least, I think that the movie could be filmed in a more reflective, and recollective way, such as starting with the plane scene, which I also think is crucially important to present in the beginning.

Cindy Lyu

Murakami Blog #3 - Norwegian Wood Film

 I agree with the similar arguments that this is quite a weak adaptation of the book. The main things that struck me as disorienting and detracted from the film were the pacing and lack of characterization, which depends on intentional time spent with the characters. This novel is incredibly complicated, plot and time wise. With all books, there is so much more space and length for things to be developed, character's internal monologues are accessible, and passing time can be more easily written in. This is something all book to film adaptations have to contend with, which is why most of the time books are better than their film counterparts. However, all this was turned up to 11 for this adaptation. The pacing was not only rushed, but literally did not make any sense. As other people have pointed out, there was no time for relationships between characters, namely Toru and Naoko and Midori respectively, to feel fleshed out and realistic. Therefore, I didn't really feel a connection with any of the characters in the film. I also agree heavily with Connor that Reiko's visit to Toru at the end was absolutely mangled. I think I was literally saying out loud, "Please mention Naoko's clothes, please mention Naoko's clothes!" Without even that, it feels even more out of place, jarring, and uncomfortable. At least in the book there was symbolic meaning and honoring of Naoko, in a very roundabout and strange way, when they had sex. Overall I was bored, and I feel like if I hadn't read the book I would have no idea what is going on in the film.

                                                                                                                                                    Kaito

This Movie Is Mid

     And this is not anti-Murakami propaganda. There's nothing I could praise about this film except for some of the cinematography, and maybe Johnny Greenwood's score. There was just something off, the script reflected mostly the shell of the novel but never reached any of its interiors. The characters were nothing but flat and unrelatable. The movie is about sex, love, and death but I felt nothing, no sympathy for any of their cries because the emotions of the actors seem so distant and their motives so unclear. Needless to say, Tran Anh Hung failed to capture the essence of Murakami's writing and only kept the structure and form--this is a lifeless film. 

    It was also kind of revolting at times. I recall to the scene with Midori and Watanabe by the swimming pool, where Midori tells Watanabe about her sex fantasies--she imagines Watanabe coming onto her, she refuses and says no because she's seeing someone, but Watanabe does it anyway. I don't remember if this dialogue took place in the novel, but nonetheless this is some real fucked up shit. Another such scene was when after the death of Midori's father, she asks Watanabe to take her to see a porn film on the phone. Maybe the true intention behind line was Midori wanted to lighten the mood, or maybe she wanted to distract herself, but I mean this is some seriously twisted shit. I don't know. I shouldn't make moral judgements on fictional characters. 

    Maybe some of his other movies are good. I've never watched any of Tran's films, but I know this one is definitely not one I should start out with. He really fails to translate the beauty in Murakami's language, details, and imagery. Maybe he's better at films that are about Vietnam than those set in Japan. 

--Bruce

Norwegian Wood (the film)

 Norwegian Wood (the film) is probably one of the weakest adaptations of a book I’ve seen in a while. I don’t entirely blame the director, since much of Murakami’s magic comes from how he uses thoughts and internal conflict to make things both cerebral and deeply emotional, which is obviously hard to translate into film. However, the actual story decisions are pretty baffling. Cutting out much of Toru’s acclimation to Tokyo and his time reconnecting with Naoko causes him to lose a great deal of the depth we enjoy in the book; this is further exacerbated by having the two’s sex scene happen 20 minutes. While I think the actual scene is handled pretty well and plays with the idea of Naoko being dead thereafter, it feels like it happens way too soon. I think the overarching issue I have with the movie is that it seems to sacrifice a good deal of Toru’s personal development in favor of his relationship with Naoko, which only serves to hurt the relationship. I think the movie gets a little better near the end as it slows the pace down significantly. This comes at the cost of cutting almost all of the scenes focusing on Midori’s father is the biggest travesty as it just ends up completely mischaracterizing Midori. Overall I wouldn’t even recommend the movie to someone who’s read the book since almost all the decisions are terrible, and I wouldn’t recommend it prior to reading since it doesn’t really give a good impression of the book.

-Nicholas

Focusing on the Positives

 To agree with the majority of viewers I didn't find Norwegian Wood the film to be particularly good. It was a translation of the story on film and I did enjoy watching everything played out. Yet, some of the story changes and bad acting (and worse on screen chemistry) made then film feel not as a direct translation of the story, but rather just a poor imitation. 

This being said, for my blogpost I want to focus on some of the positive aspects I really enjoyed about this film. I loved the cinematography in a few of the scenes. I want to call attention to the scene where Midori lies/tells Toru about her father in Uruguay. Nothing is ever physically stationary in this scene: the camera nor the actors. Toru and Midori are constantly circling each other, and the camera follows their behavior, circling and following them. It gives the scene a really uneasy feeling almost, to put it frankly it's weird. The constant motion, the repeating backgrounds, the rapid jumps between focus on Midori or Toru, it all feels like a big web is being spun. I feel as if this is a good metaphorical representation of Midori and Toru's relationship. In both the movie and the book this scene represents Midori and Toru becoming further entangled in each other's personal lives. Midori might be lying, but many of the sentiments she said were true. She's letting Toru in, therefore entangling their lives together. The circular motion of the camera and constant circling characters really make me feel this entangling. 

Another good example of a great cinematography choice is the drenching of blue during the sex scenes. When Naoko and Toru first have sex, the scene is incredibly dark and almost startlingly blue. Blue is not a romantic color, telling us that we should not be taking this scene as such. There is something wrong here, either with Naoko or the situation in general. Blue is also a color linked to depression, highlighting the vulnerable space that Naoko was in during this scene due to her struggle with mental illness. When reading this scene in the book I felt incredibly uncomfortable because I believe no one should have sex with someone who was so obviously going through an emotional crisis, it feels predatory. I believe the blue wash in the film during this scene really added to that feeling. This isn't romantic, something is off. 

So, in summary although I did not like many of the plot/writing/dialogue changes made in this film, I really do enjoy visual aspects of this film. I feel like it accurately represented the feelings I felt while reading the book. Which, in some ways, makes me appreciate the movie. 

- Cam 

Norwegian Wood Film Rant

    Norwegian Wood is another addition to a long list of books that are better than their film adaptations. While the movie was undoubtedly crafted with care and an artistic attention to detail, it would have been painful to watch without having already read and understood the book. I say painful because the plot moved incredibly fast with little development but the shots and character interactions were excruciatingly slow, making the movie a bit over two hours long. I wish the director had forgone some artisticness in favor of more character development, because most character relationships felt forced, unsubstantial, and useless.

    The first missing piece I noticed was with Storm Trooper, who makes a few appearances that do not matter. In the book, Storm Trooper actually serves a role by being someone Watanabe cares about and talks to and he even indirectly causes Naoko some joy through Watanabe’s stories. The movie just paints Storm Trooper as annoying and disposable, likely to show some of Watanabe’s dorm life, which we already see enough of. Removing Storm Trooper would have been better than making his character meaningless. 

    Anyways, Naoko, Midori, and Reiko are the three most important characters after Watanabe. However, only Naoko receives real development, leaving Midori and especially Reiko on the sidelines. Midori is supposed to be the other lover but her plot line was significantly shrunk. We see her introduce herself to Watanabe, their talk at her house, them swimming, a shortened hospital scene – which was meaningful to Watanabe’s character in the book but not in the movie, – a short phone call, her storm out at the bar, and then suddenly after not talking for a while she speaks with Watanabe and wants to wait for him. There really wasn’t enough time given to Midori, the audience missed out on the porno film and their drunk antics. Disbelief must be greatly suspended to believe that they had fallen for each other to such an extent that Midori would leave her boyfriend for Watanabe. However, Midori and Watanabe’s watered-down relationship is nowhere near as tragic as the complete dissipation of Reiko’s role. We get a slight look into Reiko’s close friendship with Naoko and she writes to Watanabe in Naoko’s stead, but she doesn’t form the same bond with Watanabe found in the book, mostly because they barely interact and we don’t learn her backstory. Additionally, her visit to Watanabe’s house, which follows a similar structure as the book, is butchered! I’m bothered by this buffoonery because even though I don’t like the movie’s structural changes, it could have still gotten this scene right. The express literary purpose of Reiko visiting Watanabe is to explore Watanabe’s grief and healing as well as further characterize Naoko. First off, the movie doesn’t make it clear that Watanabe and Reiko are trying to properly mourn Naoko, diluting the whole reason for Reiko’s visit. Secondly, Reiko doesn’t wear Naoko’s clothes or mention that Naoko left her her clothes, thus, removing Naoko’s last chance for development. In fact, now it's just super weird that Reiko and Watanabe sleep together, since in the book they were real friends and him sleeping with her after she wears Naoko’s clothes could be seen as closure. 

After writing all of this I think most of my personal grievances could have been solved with a little more dialogue rather than a complete stylistic change. - Connor Friedman

Norwegian Wood: A Ghost Story Disguised as a Romance – Book vs. Film (Preeti Lamba)

 There's a ghostly quality to Norwegian Wood (2010), as if it's less a film than a ghost story pretending to be a romance. But who is haunting whom? Is it Naoko, unable to cut herself loose from the past, or Watanabe, ever walking the tightrope between memory and desire? Or is it us—all of us—denying that nostalgia is just sorrow with a prettier name.

The movie, much like Murakami's novel, depicts a lengthy dream from which one may not wish to awaken. It is the kind that disconcerts, staying at the threshold of consciousness, slipping one's grasp just as clear comprehension approaches. Tran Anh Hung doesn't just tell a story; he ensnares us within it. His camera lingers too long; his silences stretch too far, crushing time in a way that almost seems brutal.

But something is a bit twisted. Murakami's fiction was packed with the messy, unrefined thoughts of Watanabe, gushing into the chaotic yet poetical tangle of youth, sex, literature, and longing. The silent voice in the film reduces this; it withdraws into something quieter, passive—almost like an observer of his life than the protagonist. Why is he so distant about us? Does it mean, however, that the good, dirty honesty that in the book made him such a near human character in the movie is missing?

There are some peculiarities that really stand out. Midori’s playful vulgarity, which shines so brightly in the novel, feels a bit toned down in the film. It seems to shy away from the book’s absurd humor—the strange blend of pain and nonchalance that these characters have when it comes to love and death. And then there’s the sex. In the book, intimacy is wrapped up in existential weight, but the film presents it in a way that feels almost sterile, stripping away the inner turmoil that made those moments so impactful.

Why does love seem so closely linked to death in this story? Is it because loving someone means giving away parts of yourself that you can never get back? Reiko sings, Naoko listens, and Midori flares up like a flame eager to burn away Watanabe’s sadness. But can joy ever truly overshadow the ache of absence?

The Japan depicted in the film isn’t the one we see in travel brochures or flashy cyberpunk dreams—it’s a Japan filled with wind-swept fields, damp wooden cabins, and a deep sense of loneliness. In this setting, even the cherry blossoms seem hesitant to bloom.

Norwegian Wood doesn’t provide neat resolutions because it understands that some wounds never fully heal. It poses the question: if memory is all we have left of someone, does letting go mean we’re betraying them? And it leaves us with a hard truth we might not want to face—that the past isn’t just behind us; it’s a part of us, always waiting to be remembered.

Emma's post

I thought the film adaptation of Norwegian Wood was quite good. I think Anh Hung Tran is a fantastic director and captured the energy of the novel very well. The relationship between Naoko and Toru was I think very accurately depicted and I was surprised to see Naoko’s character come to life in a way that fit the way that I imagined her. With Toru as well, I think that his character seemed very accurately representative of the way that I imagined him to be. I think that this movie however, only can really capture how the novel comes across to a viewer who has previously read the novel. Though the characters and themes may not come across 100% to someone who hasn't read the book I think for the former the essence is there and it comes across quite well. I think reasonably, the relationship between Toru and Midori is difficult to depict fully due to the focus on Naoko but the condensed version of their relationship fits fairly well with the rest of the film. That being said, Midori was much more subdued in thai portrayal than I imagined her, but perhaps I was imagining more of an Americanized version of her vulgarity and extroversion. I did not really consider how the character’s interactions would transfer and present differently in the context of 1970s Japan, but it did make me think a lot about how descriptions of characters in this way can be interpreted differently across cultures. Overall I thought that the cinematography of the film was incredible and the incorporation of nature paired with themes of isolation were done very well. I was especially impressed with the scenes after Naoko’s death where Toru is shown camping by the shore. Tran did a wonderful job of showing the profound agony of loss and the unrelenting nature of the cycle of life with the imagery of the tide and sea. My only complaint would be that the mixing of the soundtrack was a bit jarring at times and got really loud but other than that I would absolutely watch this movie again.

Norwegian Wood (Book vs Film) - Maya Thiart

 While I enjoyed the film adaptation of Norwegian Wood, I do think the changes (or rather, the omission of sequences in the book) lead to different characterizations and overall atmosphere of the story. The book goes into detail about Watanabe’s opinions and observations of the world around him, and while the film also does the same, because we infrequently hear his inner perspective, the audience feels more detached from the plot line and the characters. He exists more as an audience stand-in than a full fleshed character in his own right, dealing with complicated feelings of grief and morality. One character that I really took issue with the portrayal of is Midori. I think the actress did a great job representing her in tone, but getting rid of so much of her scenes in the writing diluted her instability and made her seem more “quirky” than the “unstable” traits we see in the book. No longer do we see her look on to the neighbor’s fire, the long pathological lie about her father (it is just briefly mentioned), the note she writes to Watanabe about not noticing her haircut— so much of her agency is ripped away instead for a passivity that seems uncharacteristic of book Midori.

I think another downfall of adapting to the film is the need to condense a lot of the information— to the point where the pacing no longer stands out. One of the more interesting parts of Norwegian Wood (the book) to me was the way the timing in the story would fluctuate between months going by in seconds to spending forever in a moment. Because of the shorter runtime (in comparison to the book), the changes in tempo for the plot are unnoticeable, as everything passes relatively quickly. When reading, I was struck by how long of the book was devoted to the night Reiko talked to Watanabe about her personal story, and the movie itself completely glosses over it. That being said, I do think that the material was hard to adapt so the effort seemed to have been made in good faith.

Maya Thiart

Norwegian Wood Film

 I was pretty disappointed in the film adaptation of Norwegian Wood. The plot was almost too similar to that of Murakami’s, the majority of the dialogue and voiceover being pulled directly from the text; in some of his other work’s film adaptations like Burning or Drive My Car, there was much more divergence from the written work, and the respective narratives seemed to transform into something different and/or new. I will say that the ambience of Norwegian Wood’s film adaptation was well executed. Like Hallie mentioned in her post, it was extremely sad, disjointed, and raw. The scenes of Naoko breaking down or Toru grieving Naoko were especially powerful and sometimes difficult to watch. Naoko’s character in the film also did a good job of exemplifying her quietness and internalized struggle. In the book, I always felt more dominated and swayed by Toru’s feelings, but the film allowed a more neutral perspective into their dynamic and respective dispositions. I wish the film had explored some of the other narratives present in the book, like Midori’s father and Toru or Reiko’s backstory, as I feel it gave Midori and Reiko’s characters much more dimension. Midori, in particular, I don’t think was accurately portrayed and felt too reserved and powerless in comparison to the novel.

Shi Shi

Norwegian Wood Movie

 I was skeptical that a movie could do justice to the complexity of feelings evoked in Norwegian Wood, but I thought that the movie adaptation was very well done. It had the same dreamlike, sad, disjointed and melancholy feeling. It was interesting to see what was emphasized in the book vs the movie. For example, I felt the backdrop of the student protests much more, I was more aware of the manual labor of Toru’s jobs, and I thought it was interesting that in the movie, you really notice that Toru and Naoko do not talk openly about their feelings and their past. I thought it was particularly interesting that in the movie, Naoko, not Toru, is the one to say she thinks people should go back and forth between 18 and 19 forever, and Toru laughs in a sad way at it. I think this change is necessary for the movie format, because it more clearly hints at the difference between Naoko and Toru that led Toru to live. I think in the book, the distinction between Naoko and Toru’s outlook is more subtle, and you can see the potential for Toru to commit suicide as well. I think this makes the book more powerful, because Toru’s effort to live becomes so much more significant, because you see how similar he is to Naoko. But I don’t think the movie format allows for this to be conveyed subtly, and so changing this dialogue from Toru to Naoko is helpful. 

I did find that Midori didn’t have the same energy and determined-ness in the movie as she did in the book. I think this was partly because the directors took out all mentions of her taking action: they don’t show her getting up at the cafe and consciously going over to Toru, they don’t show her inviting him to lunch and not showing up, they don’t show her asking him to wait for her calls, etc. She’s primarily the one to answer questions, not ask them. This helps give a muted feel to movie, that is important, but I think Midori loses some of her power and character.

Hallie

Haunted Nostalgia- Preeti Lamba blog post 2

 "Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life." – Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Murakami doesn't just tell a coming-of-age story in Norwegian Wood—he detonates it, unleashing the threads of adolescence as a dreamlike purgatory where nostalgia is less a bittersweet ache than it is a choking one. Chapters 1-11 are a slow, mournful trek into loss, as Toru Watanabe navigates life as if already half-dead. His world isn't just tinged with grief—it is drowning in it.

The novel is a romance, but come on it's about emotional atrophy. Naoko is less of a love object than a ghost—fragile, distant, already gone before she's gone. Toru's ardor for her is masochism, not love. And then there's Midori, the embodiment of the life he refuses to make his, but Murakami keeps her perpetually out of reach.

What makes these chapters so haunting is their sheer inevitability. Death lingers over every interaction, every strained conversation. There is no hope, only the quiet, aching realization that Toru is too passive to escape his own melancholy. The beauty of Murakami’s prose is undeniable, but it’s almost cruel in its ability to make loss feel so intimate, so suffocating.

By the end of these chapters, Norwegian Wood doesn’t feel like a novel—it feels like a wound. And maybe that’s the point. Growing up, Murakami argues, isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about learning to carry the ghosts of everything you’ve lost.