Murakami and Trauma

Norwegian Wood, unlike The Wild Sheep Chase, is not abstract or surreal. Murakami instead describes a realistic college life, including loneliness, sex, grief, and emotional confusion in a very relatable way. He openly addresses suicide and mental health without glamorizing or stigmatizing it. For example, Kizuki’s death is not romanticized or explained, and Naoko’s emotional instability is quietly addressed rather than dramatized. Even as we learn more about Naoko’s state and her living arrangements, she is shown in a “bubble” or utopian-like society, rather than a dramatic psychiatric ward.

I also noticed that Toru is very passive and detached, particularly in his relationships with Naoko and Midori, as well as in the emotionless sex he engages in. This passivity feels consistent with Murakami’s other male protagonists, who often observe rather than act. Toru seems to function more as someone who listens to other people’s stories rather than someone who actively changes events himself. As the novel progresses, this aspect of Toru’s character becomes increasingly apparent. Toru remains very composed while hearing about and experiencing different traumatic situations. Because of this, he often comes across as a relatively stable presence compared to the other characters around him. This seems especially clear when Naoko mentions that she and Kizuki felt more at ease when Toru was with them, and also during his lunch with Hatsumi and Nagasawa, where he again seems to occupy the role of the most grounded person in the group.

When thinking about Murakami’s motives for writing the novel, I kept thinking about his essay “Abandoning a Cat,” where he reflects on his father and the difficulty of fully understanding his experiences and trauma. In that essay, Murakami describes how certain memories, like abandoning the family cat, stay with him even though they seem small or ordinary at first. What stood out to me is how trauma and memory are often discussed indirectly, through fragments and reflections rather than clear explanations. I think something similar is happening in Norwegian Wood. Many of the characters are shaped by trauma, but it is rarely fully explained. Thinking about Norwegian Wood through the lens of “Abandoning a Cat,” it seems like Murakami may be interested in how people carry trauma quietly, often without fully understanding it themselves. Just as Murakami reflects on his father’s experiences from a distance, Toru seems to observe the pain and histories of the people around him without always being able to explain them. Instead of dramatic explanations or clear resolutions, Murakami presents these experiences as complicated parts of everyday life.

- Alexia Koulikourdis