Review: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

(Note: please forgive any grammatical errors in this review. I wrote this merely for writing practice in English).

As a person who didn't read a lot of book and don't have a degree in literature, I think I'm not a competent person to give a review on this book. I don't have much reference to give a comment to a writer as big and have a million admirers as Mr. Murakami. But I can't help my self to write this review or more like my feelings about this book as a reminder that I have tried to read Murakami and to brag my experience to my friends hehehe.

I read this book as an effort to broaden my reading genre. I spent most of my time reading YA, fantasy and sometimes fan fictions in between. So, I chose to read a more "serious" book like this one after stumbling to Murakami's page in Goodreads. He has so many loyal readers and some haters who loathed his books.

As a reader with reading skill that stuck at the beginner level and have very limited English knowledge, I found this book was pretty easy to read. I'm ashamed to write this, but honestly it's not a fun read at all. If this book is a color it would be dark grey. This book didn't affect me emotionally. There's no dramatic plot. There's no ugly crying, headbanging, or page ripping for me. I read this with a flat face. I didn't feel anything for the characters. I didn't feel sympathy for Naoko or Reiko or Hatsumi, I didn't feel angry to Nagasawa, I didn't horny when read those sex scene, but I felt slightly curious about Midori, for me she's something else. She's the only one who have an interesting character. There's nothing special about the problems that this book bring up either.

But, the way Mr. Murakami wrote every words in the character's dialogues was something that keep my interest to turning the pages. It was like a gentle stream of a deep river, you just can't help yourself to go swim in it and let your mind and body taken away. I didn't really enjoy the story, but I like the way the characters communicate to each other. I like the way Mr. Murakami write a mundane things and magically turned them to be something more beautiful in my mind. I definitely would read another book by him. I'm still curious about this great writer. I would assume this book is not his best work. I gave 3/5 stars. (Please don't hate me, I'm just the kind of person who give 5 stars for gay detectives books and 3 stars for Haruki Murakami's book).