laura blog post #5

 Earlier this week in class, we talked about magical realism, and it seemed like of his works, Norwegian Wood seems the least magical realist at first. This of course depends on the reading of it, but if you take the story at face value, everything that occurs could feasibly happen in the real world. I feel that in Norwegian Wood, the closest thing it has to magical realism is the way time seems to work in it. This definitely ties in with the theory that Naoko is already dead and the sanitorium is the underworld, but it seems like the time in the story moves much more slowly in the sanatorium, with much more attention given to the events in the shorter time period where Toru is there. I feel like this also has to do with the fact that so much of the story is based on Naoko and Toru’s relationship with her, so naturally there would be a significant part of the story focusing on her, but it’s also interesting to consider just how much time seems to slow down when Toru is at the sanatorium/’underworld.’ This can be contrasted with the part of the story that takes place in Tokyo and with Midori, where there are large timeskips. While I’m unsure if this manipulation of time within the text totally constitutes as magical realism, I feel like there’s something significant in the way time is treated inside and outside of the sanatorium with Naoko.

- Laura Hurley