Norwegian Wood: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Halfway through the next week, Toru gets into an accident at work—he slices his palm open on a glass partition and has to go to the hospital for stitches. As he wanders home in a daze, he decides to visit Nagasawa. Nagasawa tells Toru that he’s passed a major Foreign Ministry entrance exam and suggests the two of them go out with Hatsumi to celebrate at a nice restaurant. Toru is worried that dinner will be “Kizuki, Naoko and [him] all over again.”

On Saturday, Toru joins Nagasawa and Hatsumi at a fancy French restaurant. The three of them eat and drink lavishly, and Hatsumi tries to set Toru up with a girl from her college. Nagasawa says that Toru already has a girlfriend, even though he won’t breathe a word about her. Toru replies that the situation is complicated. Hatsumi says it’s a shame that things are difficult—she wishes the four of them could double date. Nagasawa makes a lewd joke about Hatsumi wanting to swap partners, then begins describing in detail a time when he and Toru slept with a pair of girls and switched off halfway through the night.

Hatsumi rounds on Toru, asking if he enjoys sleeping with random girls. She demands to know why, if he loves his girlfriend, he would sleep with other women. Toru struggles to come up with a response, and finally declares again that his situation is “complicated” just as the food arrives. Even as the waiters set the entrees on the table, however, Hatsumi continues grilling Toru, telling him she doesn’t believe he really enjoys sleeping around. If he really loves his girlfriend, she says, he should be able to control himself. Nagasawa interrupts and tells Hatsumi she simply doesn’t understand the sexual needs of men. Hatsumi demands to know why she’s not enough for Nagasawa. Nagasawa chides Hatsumi for making their guest uncomfortable.

Dinner and dessert continue awkwardly, and the three of them don’t speak much more except about the food. Just before the check comes, Nagasawa tries to bring the discussion up again and defend himself, but Hatsumi shouts at him, and he quickly calls for the bill. After dinner, on the street, Nagasawa hails a cab and opens the door for Hatsumi to get in, but she says she doesn’t want to spend any more time with him and would like for Toru to take her home. Nagasawa warns Hatsumi that while Toru seems like a nice guy, he’s “incapable of loving anybody.”

Nagasawa’s cab drives away, and Toru hails one for himself and Hatsumi. He asks if she wants to go home, and she says she doesn’t. He suggests they get a drink somewhere. As the cab drives through the streets, Toru looks at Hatsumi’s face and finds in it an ineffable quality “that could send a tremor through your heart.” He tries to put his finger on Hatsumi’s special energy, but is unable to—however, in a flash-forward, Toru reveals that the answer would come to him a dozen years later.

Many years later, at a pizza parlor in Santa Fe, Toru is watching a sunset when he feels himself flooded with understanding of the feeling Hatsumi aroused in him that night. He describes it as “a kind of childhood longing” that would always remain perpetually unfulfilled within him. Toru nearly bursts into tears in the middle of the restaurant thinking about how, just four years after Nagasawa left Tokyo, she killed herself, slashing her wrists with a razor blade. Nagasawa wrote to Toru to tell him of Hatsumi’s death, but Toru ripped the letter up and never wrote to Nagasawa again.

Toru and Hatsumi arrive at a small bar where they drink several rounds. Hatsumi suggests they go to a pool hall—though Toru hasn’t played since the day of Kizuki’s death, he agrees to go. He has trouble playing due to his sore hand, but finds himself impressed by Hatsumi’s calculated, capable shots. After the game, Toru complains about his hand, and Hatsumi suggests he come back to her apartment so that she can change his bandage for him. She used to do volunteer work at a hospital, she explains, and knows all kinds of wound care.

At Hatsumi’s apartment, Hatsumi pours the two of them beers. As she changes Toru’s bandage, she asks him what he thinks she should do about Nagasawa. Toru, answering honestly, tells Hatsumi she should leave him and find someone better. Staying with Nagasawa, he says, will only “wreck” her. Toru tells Hatsumi that he cares about her and wants her to be happy, but fears she’ll never be able to find happiness with Nagasawa.

Hatsumi admits that she doesn’t think she’ll ever leave Nagasawa—all she wants is to be a wife and mother and doesn’t feel able to do anything but wait for him to come around to her. Toru admits he’s envious of how sure Hatsumi is about her love for Nagasawa. After finishing his beer, Toru leaves. On his way out of the apartment he catches a glimpse of Hatsumi picking up the phone, presumably to dial Nagasawa. This the last time, Toru says, that he will ever see her.

The next morning, Toru drinks coffee and listens to jazz records while he watches the rain and writes a letter to Naoko. He tells her about the cut on his hand and about the disastrous evening with Hatsumi and Nagasawa. As he writes about shooting pool with Hatsumi, he finds himself writing about the afternoon of Kizuki’s death, and the last pool game they ever played. He admits, in the letter, that he didn’t actually think of Kizuki until after the first round with Hatsumi was already finished—he feels a little guilty about the idea that he might be abandoning or forgetting Kizuki but is also beginning to understand that it’s okay to move on.

Toru goes on to tell Naoko that the feelings Kizuki’s death created within him are still “bright and clear.” Though the friendship they shared as younger boys has vanished and can never be retrieved, Toru is trying to let himself accept that fact rather than remain in a state of mourning. He tells Naoko he hopes she can understand what he’s trying to say—she is the only person on earth, he believes, who possibly could.