This evening I finished reading ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Murakami Haruki. It left me strangely nostalgic, comforted, entertained and stunned. No big words or complex sentences but so very impactful. This simple but profound story of an ordinary young man is written in the first person. It starts with a young death and ends on a painful but soft note. I didn’t know anything about it before I started reading it except that this is one of his bestsellers.
An intriguing figure, Murakami is a runner and a lover of cats, books and jazz music. His love of music led him to run a jazz bar in his 20s. While watching a baseball match at the age of 29, he was struck by the thought that he could try writing a novel and since then, he has written more than thirty-five. His reclusive and humble nature means he doesn’t do many interviews.
His genre is ‘magical realism’ but he claims that his skill lies in creating dreams. He does not see magic and reality as two opposing sides of life. He believes they flow together as he follows the characters in his stories.
I paraphrase a part of the book that spoke deeply to me. While the narrator grieves the recent death of his friend, images came back to him: her touching the hair slide she always wore; her peering at him with those incredibly clear eyes of hers; her sitting on the sofa, legs drawn up beneath her blue nightdress, chin resting on her knees.
While he sleeps on a beach, the tide sweeps him along to a strange new place, a place where he lived with the dead. Here, he could speak with her and hold her in his arms.
And to him she said, “Don’t worry, it’s only death. Don’t let it bother you.”
What’s the problem? She asked him with a bashful smile, “I’m here. Aren’t I?”
If this is death, he thought to himself, it’s not so bad.
It’s true, she said. Death is nothing much. It’s just death. Things are so easy for me here.
From death he learnt that death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life. That no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No sincerity, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be of no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.
“If you remember me, I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”
- A quote from Kafka on the Shore.
Resource: Online peer-support for bereaved parents:
Circle of Remembrance (CORe): http://www.core-community.com
