Norwegian Wood

Noruwei no mori
Bok av Haruki Murakami
First American Publication This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4 million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event. Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.
Toru är berättarjaget i boken och en helt fantastisk karaktär. Under 384 sidor fick jag pröva på hur det känns att vara en japansk, ung pojke. Samtidigt blev jag kär i Toru eftersom hans sätt och tankegång är så fint. Bokens beskrivningar av kärlek i alla dess former, av ett Tokyo och Japan under höst, vinter och vår, av universitetslivet i Tokyo på 60-talet samt en ung mans ärliga tankar om två flickor i hans liv kan ha varit en av de finaste skildringarna jag läst på länge.