I've always enjoyed reading
Murakami's works. The characters' thoughts and reflections always seemed to
evoke some kind of sympathy in me and I oftentimes saw myself in them. However,
what distinguishes this book from his other works is that there is no magical
realism so typical of Murakami's novels. It's a pretty straightforward love
story and bildungsroman in which teenagers come to terms with themselves, which
makes it even more easier to relate to. Although I have never experienced a
death of someone close to me, Murakami skillfully brings to light the confused
emotions Toru Watanabe after the suicide of his best friend. I feel his
confusion, his loss of direction after the death of Kizuki. The cinematic image
of the woods and the scene in the well is an honest reflection of the emotions
of Toru and Naoko, both of whom are haunted by the memories of Kizuki.
Naoko said in the cinematic memory beside
the well, “It’s a terrible way to die…you couldn’t do a thing. You’d yell at
the top of your lungs, but nobody’d hear you, and you couldn’t expect anybody
to find you, and you’d have centipedes and spiders crawling all over you….You’d
die there in this place, little by little, all by yourself.” This seems to be
the case with Naoko and Toru. Toru struggles to go on in life as his past keeps
holding him back. Ever since the sudden death of his best friend, Kizuki, he
has been haunted by the incident, prompting him to move out of town and
continue studying where no one really knows him or what happened. He never
really points out why or how exactly it has affected him, and he never opens up
to his new friends. He is clammed in his own past, trapped, failing to reach
out, like being trapped in the well in the middle of the woods. However, when
he meets Naoko, he and Naoko share this distinct connection, begin to see each
other more often, but they never mention Kizuki. On Naoko’s 20th
birthday, Naoko breaks down, her emotions seep out, but after that, Naoko runs
away from Toru, and recluses deeper into the well.
One
of Murakami’s recurring themes in his works is his criticism of the inability
of the Japanese to openly express their feelings and that deficiency affects
people permanently, leading them to a life of alienation that prevents them
from ever reaching happiness. I thought this was clearly expressed in the first
three chapters of the book. Currently, the characters are trapped in the well in the woods and the next chapters will reveal whether they succeed in escaping a terrible death.
