Cameron Hoff Blog Post #2

 I enjoyed Murakami's Norwegian Wood overall. I really enjoy the way in which Murakami rights his characters in this novel. All of them somewhat feel like caricatures. Midori's hyper-sexuality is bashed in every scene she is in. Naoko's a manifestation of the sweet sickly girl. One can always expect Toru to be overly introspective, bashful, and naive with love. Nagasawa will always be pretentious womanizer. Despite, the somewhat shallowness of their characters I really enjoyed learning more about their backstories and seeing them interact. I loved seeing Toru's constant "Oh Brother"s at Midori's blue antics or feeling Toru's palpable love for Naoko. 

Something I noticed while reading is a connection to Murakami's other novel Dance Dance Dance. In a letter to Toru, Reiko writes while describing Nook's condition, "We have to go on unraveling the jumbled threads one at a time, without losing hope." This reminds me of a pivotal moment in Dance Dance Dance, Boku's meeting with the Sheep Man in the 16th floor of the Dolphin Hotel. The Sheep Man tells Boku, "Youlostlotsofthings. Lotsofpreciousthings. Noanybody'sfault. Buteachtimeyoulostsomething, youdroppedawholestringofthingswithit. Nowwhy? Why'dyouhavetogoanddothat." The Sheep Man in chapter 11 describes how he is someone who connects strings and ties things together. After the Sheep Man tells Boku this, he offers to help him retie his strings, connecting things he's lost, but to do that he must dance dance dance. Both Naoko and Boku represent characters whose world is unconnected, knotted, and unravelled (Boku is lost after A Wild Sheep Chase and Naoko is severely depressed) and through different ways are trying to reconnect the strings of their life. In Norwegian Wood this string motif is only mentioned one time. I recently read a literary timeline of Murakami and Dance Dance Dance was Murakami's proceeding novel after Norwegian Wood. I really enjoy how Murakami took this small idea from his previous work and transformed it into a driving work of his following work. I have yet to finish Dance Dance Dance but I hope, unlike Naoko, Boku is able to to unravel his knots and tie everything back together correctly.