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| Plot Summary of Norwegian Wood |
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"This wonderful book explores the loves and sexual adventures of student Toru Watanabe in 1960s Tokyo. Watanabe is in love with beautiful and mentally ill Naoko who is estranged to an asylum in the mountains. Naoko was his best friend's girlfriend until the friend inexplicably committed suicide at the age of 17. However into Watanabe's life marches the impetuous and slightly crazy Midori. He considers himself to be an ordinary student much to the delight of Midori. He succeeds in tenderly reconciling the past in order to move into the future. This melancholic book depicts beautifully the loves of this lonely outsider who is adrift in a sea of tragedy and passion. "
John Marcel, Resident Scholar
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"Naoko and Kizuki were a lifelong couple but their romance ended with Kizuki's inexplicable, tragic suicide shortly before high school graduation. Serious and quiet Toru, Kizuki's friend and enforcer, meets cute Naoko in Tokyo when they are entering college in the late 60's and falls in love with her. Nonetheless, Naoko finds it impossible to love anyone else, and as Toru struggles on his own to make new friends and break ground for his life, Naoko withdraws even further from him, ending up in a commune-sanatorium for depressed people. Toru's resulting bleak, lonely lifestyle is challenged when he meets Midori, a charming classmate who forces her way into his life with her wit and strong sense of independence and sexual liberation. Who will Toru choose to be his lifelong companion? And what will become of the un-chosen one?
The book, set in the turbulence of the anti-Vietnam War movement, uses a thoughtful tone of narration to tell about a person forced to make what's best in transforming the dreams of a boy into the destiny of a man."
Sergio Mendoza, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Norwegian Wood |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- thoughtful
Time/era of story
- 1960's-1970's
Romance/Romance Problems
Yes
Kind of romance:
- GENERAL--no other subplots apply
- love triangle/polygon
- seduction (yum!)
- boatload of casual sex without love
Kids growing up/acting up?
Yes
Kids:
- struggling to earn a living to survive
Internal struggle/realization?
Yes
Kind of sex:
- incest
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Age group of kid(s) in story:
- college
Something wrong upstairs/downstairs?
- searching for identity/meaning
Loving/sexing?
- girl chasing
Taboo sex story?
Yes
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- student
Age:
- a teen
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Japanese
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Female
Age:
- a teen
Profession/status:
- student
Eccentric/Smart/Dumb:
Yes
Eccentric:
- mentally ill
- emotionally unstable
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a lot
- throughout most of the book.
How sensitive is this character?
- soggy whimpering jelly muffin
- hard edged
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- physically sick
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 7 ()
Asia/Pacific
Yes
Asian country:
- Japan
City?
Yes
City:
- dirty, grimy (like New York)
- wealthy
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- explicit references to deaths
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- descript of kissing
- touching of anatomy
- licking
- lesbians!
- actual description of hetero sex
- descript. of female anat. (the big B's)
- descript. of female anat. (the big V)
- descript. of nude males (the big P)
Unusual Style:
- a lot of flashback and forwards
- written like a journal/diary/letters
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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