Norwegian Wood

by

Haruki Murakami

Toru Watanabe Character Analysis

An aloof, uncertain young man, Toru moves from his hometown of Kobe to Tokyo to study at Waseda University shortly after losing his best friend, Kizuki, to suicide. Toru’s worldview is formed by the desire to maintain a distance from other people so as not to get hurt again. As a result, Toru is never fully committed to anything: in his relationships with Naoko and Midori, he struggles with guilt and indecision as he’s torn between his love for both of them. In his studies at university, he chooses to be a drama major at random and ignores the student protests around him. He takes odd jobs to make ends meet and blows off steam each weekend by going out with his dormmate, Nagasawa, to pick up women—even though it’s rare that Toru actually enjoys sleeping with the girls. Toru claims that he wants to live his life with “intensity,” yet finds solace only in loneliness. Toru claims to love both Naoko and Midori, but his inability to commit to either of them demonstrates that his fear of action is greater than his feelings. Ultimately, Toru finds his decision made for him: after waffling for the better part of two years between Midori and Naoko, Naoko takes her own life in the woods beyond the sanatorium where she’s retreated to recover from her depression. Overcome with grief, Toru takes to the road for several weeks. He returns to Tokyo only after haunting visions of Naoko, beckoning him to join her and Kizuki in death, become too much for him to bear. By the time Toru decides to accept Midori’s love and tell her he’s ready to commit, he finds himself unable to recognize the world around him—the “shapes of people” on the street alienate and confound him. Toru’s guardedness and self-imposed isolation shield a much deeper interior life—Toru is interested in learning how to be a good person but is so afraid of what it would mean to participate in his life that he often ends up failing to do what’s right. Even in the future, as Toru narrates the story of his youth from a hotel in Hamburg, Germany, it is clear that the older Toru, too, is obsessed with memory and nostalgia, trapped in his longing for times and feelings gone by.

Toru Watanabe Quotes in Norwegian Wood

The Norwegian Wood quotes below are all either spoken by Toru Watanabe or refer to Toru Watanabe. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory, Nostalgia, and Regret Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a last­ing impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn’t give a damn about the scenery that day. […] Now, though, that meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me. […] And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. […] Naoko is not there, and neither am I. Where could we have disappeared to?

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

“Do you think we could see each other again? I know I don’t have any right to be asking you this.”

“‘Any right?’ What do you mean by that?”

[…]

“I don’t know… I can’t really explain it,” she said. […] “I didn’t mean to say right exactly. I was looking for another way to put it.” […]

“Never mind,” I said. “I think I know what you’re getting at. I’m not sure how to put it, either.”

“I can never say what I want to say.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko (speaker), Kizuki
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:

The night Kizuki died, however, I lost the ability to see death (and life) in such simple terms. Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that. When it took the seventeen-year-old Kizuki that night in May, death took me as well.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Kizuki
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

I can’t seem to recall what we talked about then. Nothing special, I would guess. We continued to avoid any mention of the past and rarely mentioned Kizuki. We could face each other over coffee cups in total silence.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Kizuki
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:

I had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do. For my courses I would read Claudel and Racine and Eisenstein, but they meant almost nothing to me. I made no friends in classes, and hardly knew anyone in the dorm. […] What did I want? And what did others want from me? […] I could never find the answers.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker)
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

I felt as if the only thing that made sense, whether for Naoko or for me, was to keep going back and forth between eighteen and nineteen. After eighteen would come nineteen, and after nineteen, eighteen. Of course. But she turned twenty. And in the fall, I would do the same. Only the dead stay seventeen forever.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Kizuki
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Hey, Kizuki, I thought, you’re not missing a damn thing. This world is a piece of shit. The assholes are earning their college credits and helping to create a society in their own disgusting image.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Kizuki
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

By the time the number of curves began to decrease to the point where I felt some relief, the bus plunged into a chilling cedar forest. The trees might have been old growth the way they towered over the road, blocking out the sun and covering everything in gloomy shadows. The breeze flowing into the bus’s open windows turned suddenly cold, its dampness sharp against the skin.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker)
Related Symbols: Forests and Woods
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’re one of us while you’re in here, so I help you and you help me.” Reiko smiled, gently flexing every wrinkle on her face. “You help Naoko and Naoko helps you.”

“What should I do, then? Give me a concrete example.”

“First you decide that you want to help and that you need to be helped by the other person. Then you decide to be totally honest. You will not lie, you will not gloss over anything, you will not cover up anything that might prove embarrassing for you. That’s all there is to it.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Reiko Ishida (speaker), Naoko
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:

“That song can make me feel so sad,” said Naoko. “I don’t know, I guess I imagine myself wandering in a deep wood. I’m all alone and it’s cold and dark, and nobody comes to save me. That’s why Reiko never plays it unless I request it.”

Related Characters: Naoko (speaker), Toru Watanabe, Reiko Ishida
Related Symbols: Forests and Woods
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

She exposed her nakedness to me this way for perhaps five minutes until, at last, she wrapped herself in her gown once more and buttoned it from top to bottom. As soon as the last button was in place, she rose and glided toward the bedroom, opened the door silently, and disappeared within.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Midori Kobayashi
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“What marks his plays is the way things get so mixed up the characters are trapped. Do you see what I mean? A bunch of different people appear, and they’ve all got their own situations and reasons and excuses, and each one is pursuing his or her own brand of justice or happiness. As a result, nobody can do anything.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Midori Kobayashi, Mr. Kobayashi
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

A week went by, though, without a word from Midori. No calls, no sign of her in the classroom. I kept hoping for a message from her when­ever I went back to the dorm, but there were never any. One night, I tried to keep my promise by thinking of her when I masturbated, but it didn’t work. I tried switching over to Naoko, but not even Naoko’s image was any help that time. […] I wrote a letter to Naoko on Sunday morning.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Midori Kobayashi
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

I felt guilty that I hadn’t thought of Kizuki right away, as if I had some­how abandoned him. […] The things that his death gave rise to are still there, bright and clear, inside me, some of them even clearer than when they were new. […] I’m going to turn twenty soon. Part of what Kizuki and I shared when we were sixteen and seventeen has already vanished, and no amount of cry­ing is going to bring that back. I can’t explain it any better than this, but I think that you can probably understand what I felt and what I am trying to say.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Kizuki, Hatsumi
Page Number: 218
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“Know what I did the other day?” Midori asked. “I got all naked in front of my father’s picture. Took off every' stitch of clothing and let him have a good, long look. Kind of in a yoga position. Like, ‘Here, Daddy, these are my tits, and this is my cunt.’”

“Why in the hell would you do something like that?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I just wanted to show him.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Midori Kobayashi (speaker), Mr. Kobayashi
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Thinking back on the year 1969, all that comes to mind for me is a swamp—a deep, sticky bog that feels as if it’s going to suck my shoe off each time I take a step. I walk through the mud, exhausted. In front of me, behind me, I can see nothing but an endless swampy darkness.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker)
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:

“Let me just tell you this, Watanabe,” said Midori, pressing her cheek against my neck. “I’m a real, live girl, with real, live blood gushing through my veins.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Midori Kobayashi (speaker), Naoko
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

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 with death inside her. And to me she said, “Don’t worry, it’s only death. Don’t let it bother you. […] Death is nothing much. It’s just death. Things are so easy for me here.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko (speaker)
Page Number: 273
Explanation and Analysis:

Gripping the receiver, I raised my head and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. 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.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Midori Kobayashi, Reiko Ishida
Page Number: 293
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Norwegian Wood LitChart as a printable PDF.
Norwegian Wood PDF

Toru Watanabe Quotes in Norwegian Wood

The Norwegian Wood quotes below are all either spoken by Toru Watanabe or refer to Toru Watanabe. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory, Nostalgia, and Regret Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a last­ing impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn’t give a damn about the scenery that day. […] Now, though, that meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me. […] And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. […] Naoko is not there, and neither am I. Where could we have disappeared to?

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

“Do you think we could see each other again? I know I don’t have any right to be asking you this.”

“‘Any right?’ What do you mean by that?”

[…]

“I don’t know… I can’t really explain it,” she said. […] “I didn’t mean to say right exactly. I was looking for another way to put it.” […]

“Never mind,” I said. “I think I know what you’re getting at. I’m not sure how to put it, either.”

“I can never say what I want to say.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko (speaker), Kizuki
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:

The night Kizuki died, however, I lost the ability to see death (and life) in such simple terms. Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that. When it took the seventeen-year-old Kizuki that night in May, death took me as well.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Kizuki
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

I can’t seem to recall what we talked about then. Nothing special, I would guess. We continued to avoid any mention of the past and rarely mentioned Kizuki. We could face each other over coffee cups in total silence.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Kizuki
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:

I had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do. For my courses I would read Claudel and Racine and Eisenstein, but they meant almost nothing to me. I made no friends in classes, and hardly knew anyone in the dorm. […] What did I want? And what did others want from me? […] I could never find the answers.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker)
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

I felt as if the only thing that made sense, whether for Naoko or for me, was to keep going back and forth between eighteen and nineteen. After eighteen would come nineteen, and after nineteen, eighteen. Of course. But she turned twenty. And in the fall, I would do the same. Only the dead stay seventeen forever.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Kizuki
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Hey, Kizuki, I thought, you’re not missing a damn thing. This world is a piece of shit. The assholes are earning their college credits and helping to create a society in their own disgusting image.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Kizuki
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

By the time the number of curves began to decrease to the point where I felt some relief, the bus plunged into a chilling cedar forest. The trees might have been old growth the way they towered over the road, blocking out the sun and covering everything in gloomy shadows. The breeze flowing into the bus’s open windows turned suddenly cold, its dampness sharp against the skin.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker)
Related Symbols: Forests and Woods
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’re one of us while you’re in here, so I help you and you help me.” Reiko smiled, gently flexing every wrinkle on her face. “You help Naoko and Naoko helps you.”

“What should I do, then? Give me a concrete example.”

“First you decide that you want to help and that you need to be helped by the other person. Then you decide to be totally honest. You will not lie, you will not gloss over anything, you will not cover up anything that might prove embarrassing for you. That’s all there is to it.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Reiko Ishida (speaker), Naoko
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:

“That song can make me feel so sad,” said Naoko. “I don’t know, I guess I imagine myself wandering in a deep wood. I’m all alone and it’s cold and dark, and nobody comes to save me. That’s why Reiko never plays it unless I request it.”

Related Characters: Naoko (speaker), Toru Watanabe, Reiko Ishida
Related Symbols: Forests and Woods
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

She exposed her nakedness to me this way for perhaps five minutes until, at last, she wrapped herself in her gown once more and buttoned it from top to bottom. As soon as the last button was in place, she rose and glided toward the bedroom, opened the door silently, and disappeared within.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Midori Kobayashi
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“What marks his plays is the way things get so mixed up the characters are trapped. Do you see what I mean? A bunch of different people appear, and they’ve all got their own situations and reasons and excuses, and each one is pursuing his or her own brand of justice or happiness. As a result, nobody can do anything.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Midori Kobayashi, Mr. Kobayashi
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

A week went by, though, without a word from Midori. No calls, no sign of her in the classroom. I kept hoping for a message from her when­ever I went back to the dorm, but there were never any. One night, I tried to keep my promise by thinking of her when I masturbated, but it didn’t work. I tried switching over to Naoko, but not even Naoko’s image was any help that time. […] I wrote a letter to Naoko on Sunday morning.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Midori Kobayashi
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

I felt guilty that I hadn’t thought of Kizuki right away, as if I had some­how abandoned him. […] The things that his death gave rise to are still there, bright and clear, inside me, some of them even clearer than when they were new. […] I’m going to turn twenty soon. Part of what Kizuki and I shared when we were sixteen and seventeen has already vanished, and no amount of cry­ing is going to bring that back. I can’t explain it any better than this, but I think that you can probably understand what I felt and what I am trying to say.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko, Kizuki, Hatsumi
Page Number: 218
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“Know what I did the other day?” Midori asked. “I got all naked in front of my father’s picture. Took off every' stitch of clothing and let him have a good, long look. Kind of in a yoga position. Like, ‘Here, Daddy, these are my tits, and this is my cunt.’”

“Why in the hell would you do something like that?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I just wanted to show him.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Midori Kobayashi (speaker), Mr. Kobayashi
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Thinking back on the year 1969, all that comes to mind for me is a swamp—a deep, sticky bog that feels as if it’s going to suck my shoe off each time I take a step. I walk through the mud, exhausted. In front of me, behind me, I can see nothing but an endless swampy darkness.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker)
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:

“Let me just tell you this, Watanabe,” said Midori, pressing her cheek against my neck. “I’m a real, live girl, with real, live blood gushing through my veins.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Midori Kobayashi (speaker), Naoko
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

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 with death inside her. And to me she said, “Don’t worry, it’s only death. Don’t let it bother you. […] Death is nothing much. It’s just death. Things are so easy for me here.”

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Naoko (speaker)
Page Number: 273
Explanation and Analysis:

Gripping the receiver, I raised my head and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. 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.

Related Characters: Toru Watanabe (speaker), Midori Kobayashi, Reiko Ishida
Page Number: 293
Explanation and Analysis: