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.
“So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally 365 days a year. I was still in primary school at the time, but I made up my mind once and for all."
"Wow. And did your search pay off?"
"That's the hard part. I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough."
"Waiting for the perfect love?"
"No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortbread. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortbread out to me. And I say I don't want it any more and throw it out of the window. That's what I 'm looking for."
"I'm not sure that has anything to do with love."
“It does. You just don't know it. There are times in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important."
"Things like throwing strawberry shortbread out of the window?"
"Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. 'Now I see, Midori. What a fool I've been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortbread. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I'll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?'"
"So then what?"
"So then I'd give him all the love he deserves for what he's done."
"Sounds crazy to me."
"Well, to me, that's what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though. For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all.”
