ren’s Reviews > Norwegian Wood > Status Update

"Where was I now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center of this place that was no place."

"'I have to talk to you. I have a million things to talk to you about. A million things we have to talk about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.'
Midori responded with a long, long silence -- the silence of all the misty rain in the world falling on all the new-mown lawns of the world."

"'We may never meet again, but no matter where I go, I'll always remember you and Naoko.'
I saw that she was crying. Before I knew it, I was kissing her. Others on the platform were staring at us, but I didn't care about such things anymore. We were alive, she and I. And all we had to think about was continuing to live."

idk man now you seem closer to nagasawa with your womanizing

"'How many songs is that?'
'Fourteen,' I said.
She sighted and asked me, 'How about you? Can you play something -- maybe one song?'
'No way. I'm terrible.'
'So play it terribly.'"

"'Well, now they're straightened out, wouldn't you say?'
I shook my head. 'Now that Naoko's dead, you mean?'
'No, not that. You made your decision long before Naoko died -- that you could never leave Midori. Whether Naoko is alive or dead, it has nothing to do with your decision. You chose Midori. Naoko chose to die.'"

"I'm all through as a human being. All you're looking at is the lingering memory of what I used to be. The most important part of me, what used to be inside, died years ago, and I'm just functioning by rote memory."

"It was one of those steaming hot nights. We had the windows wide open, but there was hardly a breath of wind. It was black as ink outside, the crickets were screaming, and the smell of the summer grass was so thick in the room it was hard to breathe."

"Her familiar little gestures soothed my heart and gave me healing. 'If this is death,' I thought to myself, 'then death is not so bad.'
'It's true,' said Naoko, 'death is nothing much. It's just death. Things are so easy for me here. Naoko spoke to me in the spaces between the crashing of the dark waves."

:((

"The memories would slam against me like the waves of an incoming tide, sweeping my body along to some strange new place -- a place where I lived with the dead. There Naoko lived, and I could speak with her and hold her in my arms. There, death was but one of many elements comprising life. There Naoko lived with the death inside her. And to me she said, 'Don't worry, it's only death. Don't let it bother you.'"

"... It was strange to think that she was dead and no longer part of this world. I couldn't absorb the truth of it. I couldn't believe it. I had heard the nails being driven into the lid of her coffin, but I still couldn't adjust to the fact that she had returned to nothingness.
No, the image of her was still too vivid in my memory. I couldn't believe still feel her warmth, her breath against me."