Saturday, February 4, 2012

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

My favorite Murakami books. I'd like to talk about it but I don't think I can, all I can say is that it got me thinking a lot.


Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn't give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about myself again. It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. The scenery was the last thing on my mind.


It just happens that I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.




"I want you to always remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you like this?"

 
"I can never say what I want to say. It’s been like this for a while now. I try to say something, but all I get are the wrong words-the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It’s like I’m split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing the other half around the big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this me can’t catch her."


'What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.'


O.K., so I’m not so smart. I’m working class. But it’s the working class that keeps the world running, and it’s the working class that gets exploited. What the hell kind of revolution have you got just tossing out big words that working-class can’t understand? What the hell kind of social revolution is that? 

Thank you Noor, for feeding my Murakami obsession and sending me this book.  

1 comment:

ibhog said...

Loved the quotes ..