Blog Post #2

 I just finished Norwegian Wood, which is definitely my favorite thing we have read so far in this class. I’m still processing the end section of the book, but have a handful of half-baked ideas about it. The thing that stood out to me most in the last section we read was the idea of detachment. In class, we’ve talked about how Watanabe is less detached than Murakami’s other narrators, and I agreed with that. In the dinner scene with Nagasawa and Hatsumi, however, Nagasawa says that he and Watanabe are the same, and that they are both unable “to feel any interest in anything other than what [they themselves] think or feel or do” (208). To me, this makes Watanabe sound very detached from the world around him, at least in Nagasawa’s view.

As I continued reading, I found myself viewing Watanabe as detached more and more. It feels like a different kind of detached than with Boku in A Wild Sheep Chase—with Watanabe, the readers have a better feel of his thoughts and feelings, so he is less detached to the reader. Within the world of the story, however, he is very distant. One of the ways this feeling of detachment is made is by the communication methods used—letters and phone calls. In both cases, attempted communication is often met with a lack of response, be it letters which never receive a reply or the other person not answering the phone. In these periods where he is waiting for a reply, Watanabe is very isolated, seemingly only going through the motions. Even when characters are together in person there is a disconnect at times, like when Midori and Watanabe are together but Watanabe only finds out her true feelings through the letter she gives him before she leaves. This feels like a surface level exploration of the idea of detachment in the book, and the end of the novel is another clear example—Watanabe is on the phone with Midori, but he is entirely unaware of the world around him, and while he calls out for Midori, trying to use her as a line back to reality, he never gets a reply.

- Laura Hurley