--- product_id: 3225074 title: "Norwegian Wood" price: "C$1655" currency: NIO in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.ni/products/3225074-norwegian-wood store_origin: NI region: Nicaragua --- # Norwegian Wood **Price:** C$1655 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Norwegian Wood - **How much does it cost?** C$1655 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ni](https://www.desertcart.ni/products/3225074-norwegian-wood) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” ( The New York Times Book Review ) blending the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love. Now with a new introduction by the author. Toru, a 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. As Naoko retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. Stunning and elegiac, Norwegian Wood first propelled Haruki Murakami into the forefront of the literary scene. Review: A coming of age story that you won't be able to put down - Murakami is someone I've never fully embraced, yet keep coming back to. I don't like some of the fantastic and surreal elements of his writing, but I'm also drawn by the energy, intelligence, and inventiveness of it. And I also love how he infuses his work with elements of Western culture, especially music. Norwegian Wood is a straight-on story about love and loss, and coming of age. It's not cluttered by any surrealism or fantasy. And it's loaded with musical references to classical and jazz, as well as the Western rock music of the late sixties. (As the title would suggest.) Thus, Norwegian Wood was exactly the right Murakami book to pick up next, the one book to push me further into his work. It tells the story of Toru Watanabe, a college freshman living in Tokyo. Like many young men his age, he doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, and majors in drama for no real reason. And like many men his age, women both complicate and clarify things. He has relationships with two completely different women: the troubled and introspective Naoko and the outgoing and spunky Midori. Naoko poses the most trouble for Toru for many reasons. First, she's the ex-girlfriend of Toru's best friend in high school, Kizuki, who committed suicide at 17. Kizuki's death had a major impact on both friends. For Naoko, she lost not just a boyfriend, but someone she had known since childhood, someone who had become almost a part of herself. For Toru, his friend's suicide changed his perspective on life, filling everything with the taste of death. `Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it', becomes his new motto. So when Toru and Naoko meet again, accidentally, on the subway, there's a connection, but a troubled one. The ghost of Kizuki hangs over them. They begin with odd walks through the city, Toru trailing Naoko like a puppy. But eventually a form of love develops. Once things eventually come to a head on her 20th birthday, their relationship becomes further complicated as Naoko runs away to a kind of sanatorium in the mountains over Kyoto. Months pass before Toru even knows where she's gone, and he lives in a sort of limbo, going to school, working at a record store. Waiting. Meanwhile, he meets Midori, a fellow drama student. They form an immediate bond, though she has a boyfriend and has her own problems with her troubled family life, including a father dying of brain cancer. They become fast friends, and Toru finds himself attracted to her despite the pain he still feels at the loss of Naoko. Of course, Naoko muddies the waters again by writing him to tell him where she is and inviting him to visit. There he meets Naoko's roommate, Reiko, an older woman with a talent for music. The three spend much time sitting around while Reiko plays guitar for them, including Naoko's favorite song, Norwegian Wood. In a sense, Reiko becomes the third woman in Toru's life, because she is open, and they develop a friendship in his short time there. With Naoko, he learns some more about her issues, but just enough happens to keep him connected to her, not enough to resolve their love. He is still in a limbo. Murakami teases the frustrations of this state out of Toru. Toru agonizes over his dilemma, stuck between a woman he loves but can't have and a great woman he can have. Midori begins to fall for him and pressures him. But he's waiting for something to happen. Of course, something does. But then what? Has he waited too long? This is a great story, but it is further strengthened by great characters. Besides Toru and Midori, whose honest, straight-forward manners combine with deep vulnerabilities to make them both irresistible, Murakami fills the landscape with great supporting actors as well. Reiko steals each scene she walks into. Toru's anal roommate "Storm Trooper" makes for some good laughs, and is a great source of conversation for Toru. Nagasawa is a privileged student of an elite university who is drawn to Toru through a shared love of Western literature and uses his influence to help Toru out of a few jams. Yet his arrogance and womanizing also adds a layer of complexity to the friendship, as these traits both compel and repulse Toru. The characters really make this book hard to put down. Norwegian Wood is a great read and will definitely keep me on the path to reading more Murakami. Review: Murakami, not quite coming of age as a writer - Bottom Line First: Haruki Murakami’s fifth book, Norwegian Wood was his break out book as a major Japanese novelist. It is not the fantasy reality of his later works. This is a more personal book and more focused on people, moods and feelings. It has serious emotional depth and some wasted space. Were I not coming into this book as a fan, I am not sure I would have determined to read all of his titles. Recommendation a definite read for like minded fans, a bit troublesome for the uninitiated but a good story of a time place and age. The narrator and central character of Norwegian Wood, Toru Watanabe is a relatively impecunious collage freshman in a lessor Japanese collage. He is socially withdrawn and emotionally uncertain. He was the last person to see his very close childhood friend before the friend committed suicide and through him he has a very close feeling for his late friend’s girlfriend Naoko. They are both survivors of the suicide and both having to understand who they are absent this person who had been their common center. Much of this 400 page novel is about Watananbe trying to understand who he is and how he best fits into the lager world after leaving home. This world is the Japan of the 1960’s where student can take over the campus and politics as much as money influence your social standing. He is has a powerful bond with Naoko and will become deeply involved with a stronger, elusive female college classmate Midori. Watanabe is alternately a good person, instantly able to, for example, identify with and bond with Midori’s dying father. He is just as capable of using his socially adept and well healed collage chum to cruise the bars to pick up and sleep with random faceless women. He does not like any of his male classmates and he has a particular distaste for the man he uses for a variety of favors. Most of Norwegian Wood is about how Wanatabe alternately indulges and pushes himself while allowing events and people to flow around him. He is capable of being very gentle and understanding. Or he is being passive and accepting. One expects that he would make a very good psychotherapist, or at least a counselor of some type. For all this the word I kept associating with him was ‘Passive”. I have to agree with other reviewers who feel this book has been padded out. It may be that in the original, many of the overly detailed descriptive passages are lyrical, but too often I found them a needless demand on my time. Murakami can set a mood and bring you into people’s minds but at this point he is not always sure why he brought you there. Norwegian Wood s early Murakami. It is not his best. He will keep many themes and backgrounds in later works. I liked this book, even if at times, I wanted Watanabe to take a stand, to take charge and for the writer to speed things up. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #4,889 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #50 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction #367 in Literary Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 22,917 Reviews | ## Images ![Norwegian Wood - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/712SInGyh5L.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A coming of age story that you won't be able to put down *by P***N on May 8, 2011* Murakami is someone I've never fully embraced, yet keep coming back to. I don't like some of the fantastic and surreal elements of his writing, but I'm also drawn by the energy, intelligence, and inventiveness of it. And I also love how he infuses his work with elements of Western culture, especially music. Norwegian Wood is a straight-on story about love and loss, and coming of age. It's not cluttered by any surrealism or fantasy. And it's loaded with musical references to classical and jazz, as well as the Western rock music of the late sixties. (As the title would suggest.) Thus, Norwegian Wood was exactly the right Murakami book to pick up next, the one book to push me further into his work. It tells the story of Toru Watanabe, a college freshman living in Tokyo. Like many young men his age, he doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, and majors in drama for no real reason. And like many men his age, women both complicate and clarify things. He has relationships with two completely different women: the troubled and introspective Naoko and the outgoing and spunky Midori. Naoko poses the most trouble for Toru for many reasons. First, she's the ex-girlfriend of Toru's best friend in high school, Kizuki, who committed suicide at 17. Kizuki's death had a major impact on both friends. For Naoko, she lost not just a boyfriend, but someone she had known since childhood, someone who had become almost a part of herself. For Toru, his friend's suicide changed his perspective on life, filling everything with the taste of death. `Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it', becomes his new motto. So when Toru and Naoko meet again, accidentally, on the subway, there's a connection, but a troubled one. The ghost of Kizuki hangs over them. They begin with odd walks through the city, Toru trailing Naoko like a puppy. But eventually a form of love develops. Once things eventually come to a head on her 20th birthday, their relationship becomes further complicated as Naoko runs away to a kind of sanatorium in the mountains over Kyoto. Months pass before Toru even knows where she's gone, and he lives in a sort of limbo, going to school, working at a record store. Waiting. Meanwhile, he meets Midori, a fellow drama student. They form an immediate bond, though she has a boyfriend and has her own problems with her troubled family life, including a father dying of brain cancer. They become fast friends, and Toru finds himself attracted to her despite the pain he still feels at the loss of Naoko. Of course, Naoko muddies the waters again by writing him to tell him where she is and inviting him to visit. There he meets Naoko's roommate, Reiko, an older woman with a talent for music. The three spend much time sitting around while Reiko plays guitar for them, including Naoko's favorite song, Norwegian Wood. In a sense, Reiko becomes the third woman in Toru's life, because she is open, and they develop a friendship in his short time there. With Naoko, he learns some more about her issues, but just enough happens to keep him connected to her, not enough to resolve their love. He is still in a limbo. Murakami teases the frustrations of this state out of Toru. Toru agonizes over his dilemma, stuck between a woman he loves but can't have and a great woman he can have. Midori begins to fall for him and pressures him. But he's waiting for something to happen. Of course, something does. But then what? Has he waited too long? This is a great story, but it is further strengthened by great characters. Besides Toru and Midori, whose honest, straight-forward manners combine with deep vulnerabilities to make them both irresistible, Murakami fills the landscape with great supporting actors as well. Reiko steals each scene she walks into. Toru's anal roommate "Storm Trooper" makes for some good laughs, and is a great source of conversation for Toru. Nagasawa is a privileged student of an elite university who is drawn to Toru through a shared love of Western literature and uses his influence to help Toru out of a few jams. Yet his arrogance and womanizing also adds a layer of complexity to the friendship, as these traits both compel and repulse Toru. The characters really make this book hard to put down. Norwegian Wood is a great read and will definitely keep me on the path to reading more Murakami. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Murakami, not quite coming of age as a writer *by P***D on November 10, 2016* Bottom Line First: Haruki Murakami’s fifth book, Norwegian Wood was his break out book as a major Japanese novelist. It is not the fantasy reality of his later works. This is a more personal book and more focused on people, moods and feelings. It has serious emotional depth and some wasted space. Were I not coming into this book as a fan, I am not sure I would have determined to read all of his titles. Recommendation a definite read for like minded fans, a bit troublesome for the uninitiated but a good story of a time place and age. The narrator and central character of Norwegian Wood, Toru Watanabe is a relatively impecunious collage freshman in a lessor Japanese collage. He is socially withdrawn and emotionally uncertain. He was the last person to see his very close childhood friend before the friend committed suicide and through him he has a very close feeling for his late friend’s girlfriend Naoko. They are both survivors of the suicide and both having to understand who they are absent this person who had been their common center. Much of this 400 page novel is about Watananbe trying to understand who he is and how he best fits into the lager world after leaving home. This world is the Japan of the 1960’s where student can take over the campus and politics as much as money influence your social standing. He is has a powerful bond with Naoko and will become deeply involved with a stronger, elusive female college classmate Midori. Watanabe is alternately a good person, instantly able to, for example, identify with and bond with Midori’s dying father. He is just as capable of using his socially adept and well healed collage chum to cruise the bars to pick up and sleep with random faceless women. He does not like any of his male classmates and he has a particular distaste for the man he uses for a variety of favors. Most of Norwegian Wood is about how Wanatabe alternately indulges and pushes himself while allowing events and people to flow around him. He is capable of being very gentle and understanding. Or he is being passive and accepting. One expects that he would make a very good psychotherapist, or at least a counselor of some type. For all this the word I kept associating with him was ‘Passive”. I have to agree with other reviewers who feel this book has been padded out. It may be that in the original, many of the overly detailed descriptive passages are lyrical, but too often I found them a needless demand on my time. Murakami can set a mood and bring you into people’s minds but at this point he is not always sure why he brought you there. Norwegian Wood s early Murakami. It is not his best. He will keep many themes and backgrounds in later works. I liked this book, even if at times, I wanted Watanabe to take a stand, to take charge and for the writer to speed things up. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A great literary read. *by C***S on November 8, 2024* Over the years I have read a wide range of genres. Doing so has certainly added to my enjoyment but doubt any reader would claim doing so makes them anything special LOL. What it means is that life is complicated, that there is no one size fits all, that tracking down a murderer can be entertaining but so can entering the inner workings of the mind of certain characters, in this case students outside the mainstream, loners who do not fraternize and party with their peers. It is also interesting what attracts readers to a book. For me it was the title, then the description since I was unfamiliar with Haruki Murakami a the time. Thankfully that has now changed. Others have very adequately summarized the plot of Norwegian Wood so let me just say this is a literary book. There are no serial killers or car chases in it. For that I read one of several masters of the action genre, Barry Eisler for example. What is in this book is an interesting look at how hard growing up can be for some young people. According to statista.com there were 12.5 to 13.2 suicides per 100,000 in the population between 1950-1970, the period (60's) covered in this book. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services: "The suicide rate among people aged 10–24 . . . increased 62% from 2007 through 2021 (from 6.8 deaths per 100,000 to 11.)" Why do young people end their lives? Why? There is no one-reason-fits-all explanation but in my opinion this book allows us to visit what happens to its characters in this particular age group. Each person is well presented within his/her own parameters/psychosis and that includes the 13 year old female. Children like that do in fact exist. I label them negative manipulators. They learn very early how to manipulate themselves into and out of any situation, always to the detriment of those caught up in one of the negative manipulations. A John Steinbeck novel, "East of Eden," has such a character and there was such a person in my neighborhood when growing up. All 13 year olds do NOT behave as we wish them to. In fact, few people will fit into a predetermined ideal of what we think them to be. I do not like SPOILERS but they seemed to flow out of me anyway while writing this. So, then, please note that the remainder of this post contains SPOILERS. Interpretation of events and even written words varies from individual to individual. It appeared to me that Naoko did not refute Toru's advances on his visit and even noted that for the first time ever she got wet, a fact she discussed with him afterward. She improved off and on for a time before starting the downward slide once again. While in the free-form type sanatorium she seemed to enjoy Toru's visits. He visited at her invitation. She kept his letters. What tipped her over the edge was not clear as she even worsened under more advanced care at another sanatorium. Prior to ending her life she did note that she did not want to be violated again which I took to mean loss of control. A matter of perspective? When one thinks on it, it is a miracle so many of us survive the growing-up process and become productive adults. Tragically, Kizuki and Naoko did not survive but it appears that Reiko has a chance since she left the sanatorium. Will Midori and Toru make it and do so together? Another character, Nagasawa, had well developed aspirations so he seems to be headed off into the land of adulthood on his own terms. Realistically but tragically, unhappy people like Naoko decide to end their lives. Even so, literary books like Norwegian Wood will not appeal to everyone but for those of us who enjoy a good literary read, then this book is highly recommended. I look forward to reading other Murakami books. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.ni/products/3225074-norwegian-wood](https://www.desertcart.ni/products/3225074-norwegian-wood) --- *Product available on Desertcart Nicaragua* *Store origin: NI* *Last updated: 2026-05-10*