Νορβηγικό δάσος
Χαρούκι Μουρακάμι, 1987
A young man looks back on love, loss, and the landscapes that memory keeps when people fade.
Feels like melancholy, longing and tenderness. About memory, love and solitude.
A page from the book
When the setting survives, what becomes of the people who once filled it?
Αλλά τώρα, η εικόνα του λιβαδιού είναι το πρώτο που θυμάμαι. Η μυρωδιά του χορταριού, η ανεπαίσθητη ψύχρα στον αέρα, η κορυφογραμμή των λόφων, το γάβγισμα κάποιου σκύλου: είναι τα πρώτα που ανακαλώ και επιστρέφουν με απόλυτη διαύγεια. Αισθάνομαι πως θα μπορούσα να τα πιάσω και να τα ψηλαφίσω. Όσο καθαρή όμως κι αν είναι η εικόνα, δεν υπάρχει κανένας μέσα σ’ αυτήν. Κανείς. Η Ναόκο δεν είναι εκεί, ούτε κι εγώ. Πού πήγαμε; Πώς επιτρέψαμε να συμβεί κάτι τέτοιο; Όλα εκείνα που τότε έμοιαζαν τόσο σημαντικά, η Ναόκο, αυτός που ήμουν εγώ εκείνη την εποχή και ο τότε κόσμος μου – πού πήγαν; Είναι γεγονός πως δεν μπορώ να επαναφέρω πια ούτε το πρόσωπό της – τουλάχιστον όχι ταχύτατα. Το μόνο που μου έχει απομείνει είναι το φόντο, ένα καθαρό σκηνικό χωρίς ανθρώπους. Χαρούκι Μουρακάμι.Murakami titled the novel after the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood”; its Japanese title uses the song’s English name.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Νορβηγικό δάσος like?
- Feels like melancholy, longing and tenderness. About memory, love and solitude.
- What should I read after Νορβηγικό δάσος?
- If you liked Νορβηγικό δάσος, try Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami), The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) and The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy).
A taste of the feed
What a house becomes when no one has been living in it.
“It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. In the undergrowth a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf strewn driveway.
The God of Small Things · Arundhati Roy
Wanting to disappear completely, and to be loved completely, in the same breath.
Yes I would like he thinks to live in such a way that I could vanish into thin air at any time without affecting anyone and in fact I feel that for me this would constitute the perfect and perhaps the only acceptable life. At the same time I want desperately to be loved.
Intermezzo · Sally Rooney
The question underneath every loss: not why we hurt, but who we were.
I cried, all right. I sat there at my desk and I cried for her, for me, for both of us, for all of us. I can’t remember hurting any more in my life than I did then. Hearts are tough, she said, most times hearts don’t break, and I’m sure that’s right ... but what about then? What about who we were then? What about hearts in Atlantis?
Hearts in Atlantis · Stephen King
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