Norwegian Wood

The following day, Watanabe takes a bullet train to Kyoto. From the train, he boards a local bus that takes him deep into the mountains. They pass through “chilling” forests and stretches of farmland with sweeping mountain views. When they arrive at his stop, Watanabe is the only passenger to get off. No buildings are in sight, so he begins hiking up a path. He reaches a fence, and a guard tells him to enter the complex and ask for Doctor Ishida. 

Watanabe does as he is told and is greeted by a wrinkled woman who appears to be in her late 30s. She tells Watanabe that she isn’t actually a doctor but a music teacher and has been a patient in the institute for seven years. She is also Naoko’s roommate and wants to tell Watanabe more about Ami Hostel before he sees her. They eat lunch together, and she tells him to call her Reiko. 

Reiko explains that Ami Hostel is like “one of those commune places” and offers “convalescence” instead of traditional treatments (96). The patients are admitted voluntarily and can leave any time they like. She explains that the environment of Ami Hostel, the isolation, peace, and routine, is healing, and everyone works together to help each other get better. To help Naoko, Watanabe must be totally honest with her. Naoko is doing better, Reiko says. She is more comfortable expressing herself and is ready to open up to Watanabe.

Watanabe will stay in the women’s apartment, but Reiko warns him he and Naoko are not allowed alone; Reiko will act as their chaperone. She tells him not to worry because she already knows “pretty much everything” about their relationship. Finally, she tells Watanabe that she knows he can open his heart “if [he] want[s] to” (100).

Reiko takes Watanabe back to their apartment and shows him the sofa bed on which he will sleep. Then, she leaves him to return to her work. Watanabe lies down on the sofa, enjoying the peace of the simple apartment. Lost in thought, he doesn’t notice Naoko until she is sitting on the arm of the sofa looking at him. She tells him she snuck away to see him for a moment in private. He holds her for a moment before she leaves, then falls into a deep sleep. 

After dinner in the cafeteria, Reiko opens a secret bottle of wine and begins playing her guitar. Naoko requests “Norwegian Wood,” telling Watanabe it is her favorite. She tells him it makes her “so sad,” and Reiko never plays it unless she asks. As they listen to the music, Watanabe thinks that Naoko looks different; her beauty is maturing, and she has lost the sharpness of adolescence. Watanabe tells her about Nagasawa for the first time, saying that his friend is not an ordinary man like Watanabe. This annoys Naoko, who tells him that he is not ordinary, and that’s why she slept with him. She asks how many women he has slept with, and he tells her that he has been with eight or nine. The number seems shockingly high to Reiko, and Watanabe explains that he was hurt and lonely after Naoko left. Returning to his question from the night of her birthday, Naoko tells Watanabe that she tried to have sex with Kizuki. However, she couldn’t get aroused, and intercourse was always too painful, so they stuck to other sexual activities. She tells Watanabe that on the night of her birthday, she had wanted him in a way she never wanted anyone, a feeling that confused her because she loved Kizuki so much. She explains that they had “a truly special relationship” (112); growing up together, they had always understood each other, and without him, she doesn’t know what love looks like.

Suddenly, Naoko starts sobbing, and Reiko suggests that Watanabe go for a short walk. Upon returning, Naoko is resting in her room, and Reiko invites Watanabe for another walk with her. Watanabe worries that he has made a mistake with Naoko, but Reiko assures him that she is fine; he was honest with her, which is the most important thing. She asks Watanabe if he is serious about waiting for Naoko, warning him that there is no guarantee that she will recover fully. Watanabe says he isn’t sure; like Naoko, he doesn’t know what it means to love another person. 

Reiko shows Watanabe a picture of her 10-year-old daughter and begins to tell him about her life. As a child, Reiko was a talented piano player. However, while practicing for an important competition, the little finger of her left hand stopped working. The doctors could find nothing physically wrong, so they attributed the problem to stress and suggested she take a break from playing. Reiko tried, but the fear of losing her ability to play consumed her, and she had a mental breakdown. After two months in the hospital, she completed her schooling, but her doctor advised against the stress of becoming a concert pianist, so she became a piano teacher instead. Devastated by the loss of her dream, Reiko was hospitalized again. Shortly after her release, one of her students asked her to marry him. The two had never even been on a date, and Reiko declined, explaining that she had been hospitalized twice for her mental health. Unfazed, the man restated his desire to marry her, and the two dated for several months and were finally married. Reiko discovered that her life wasn’t over just because her dream of being a concert pianist hadn’t been realized. She found happiness again and had a daughter. Years later, however, she “fell apart” again.

She had begun playing the piano again while her daughter was at school, just for herself. One day, a neighbor visited, saying that her daughter had seen Reiko playing and wanted lessons. Reiko agreed to meet the girl and was immediately captivated by the beautiful, intelligent child. She had no idea that the girl was a pathological liar. Here, she pauses, telling Watanabe it is late and they should finish the story another time. 

Naoko is waiting for them at the apartment. She apologizes to Watanabe, and they talk more. She tells him more about her relationship with Kizuki, trying to explain how close they were and how natural it felt for them to be together. As they grew up, their idyllic, innocent relationship was threatened as they were forced to enter the real world. She tells Watanabe he was “the link connecting [them] with the outside world” and apologizes (128), telling him that they didn’t mean to use him or hurt him.

Reiko makes hot cocoa to lighten the mood, and Watanabe amuses the women with stories of life in the dorm. After they have all gone to sleep, Naoko comes to Watanabe. She kneels next to him, removes her nightgown, and sits naked. Watanabe admires her “perfect” body, but he remembers a sense of “imperfection” from their night together in Tokyo, and therefore, she seems foreign to him. After a few minutes, she replaces her nightgown and returns to bed. 

The next morning, Naoko does not mention the incident. In the afternoon, the three of them walk outside the grounds, reaching a small coffeehouse where they have a drink and listen to the radio. Reiko suggests that Naoko and Watanabe take a walk, even though they aren’t supposed to be alone together. As they walk, Naoko apologizes again for crying the night before. She tells Watanabe that she worries she will never get better and that she can sometimes hear Kizuki asking her to join him. Watanabe and Naoko lie in the grass and kiss. She tells him that she needs to be “righter” before they can have sex again and asks if he will wait for her. He agrees, and she offers to touch him in the meantime. 

After Watanabe finishes, they walk a little further, and Naoko tells him that she had an older sister who died by suicide. Her sister was beautiful, smart, and good at everything. Naoko idolized her and was, in turn, adored as “the cute little sister” (143). She explains that her sister never asked for help or opened up to anyone about her problems. Sometimes, she would become “subdued,” refusing to leave her room or speak to anyone, but after a few days, she always resumed her normal activities. One day, without warning, she hanged herself in her bedroom, and Naoko found her body. She tells Watanabe that her father also had a brother who died by suicide, causing them to wonder if it ran in the family. Watanabe doesn’t understand the depth of her “sickness,” she says, and she worries that his proximity to her will be unhealthy for him. He insists she can let go of her past and asks if she will live with him when she gets well.

Back in the apartment after dinner, Reiko asks Watanabe to take a walk with her to pick up some grapes. When they are alone, Watanabe asks her to continue her story from the previous night. She tells Watanabe that the girl started coming to her house every Saturday for piano lessons. They got along well, and Reiko enjoyed teaching her. One afternoon, the girl complained that she wasn’t feeling well, so Reiko took her upstairs to lie down. Face down on the bed, the girl asked Reiko to take her bra off and rub her back. Oblivious to the potential ramifications, Reiko obliged, worried about the girl’s health. She started to sob but refused to tell Reiko what was wrong. The woman held her and tried to soothe her but noticed that the girl’s touch was becoming sensuous. Before Reiko could stop her, the girl had removed most of Reiko’s clothing and was kissing and touching her. Reiko insisted that her student stop but couldn’t deny that the girl’s touch was “paradise.” Finally, Reiko hit the girl in the face and demanded that she leave. 

Reiko tells Watanabe that she is embarrassed to tell him the details of her story, but she continues. The girl didn’t return for her lesson the following Saturday, and Reiko started to notice funny looks from the neighbors. She learned that the girl had come home bleeding with her clothes ripped, accusing Reiko of assaulting her. Conflicted, Reiko finally told her husband the truth, and he believed her. She insisted that the only solution was for them to move far away and start over; her fragile mental health couldn’t handle the stress. Her husband argued that it would take months to find a new job and home. In the meantime, Reiko had another mental breakdown and attempted suicide. She was hospitalized, and when she began to recover, she insisted on divorcing her husband, thinking it would be better for him and their daughter. She tells Watanabe that she is scared of getting “involved in the outside world” (161), so she stays in Ami Hostel. 

That night, the three of them stay in the apartment, listening to the rain pour. The next morning, Watanabe bids farewell to Naoko and Reiko, promising to write and visit again. Back in Tokyo, Watanabe heads straight to work at the record store. He is overwhelmed by the street noise, drunken customers, and his manager’s crude stories. After work, he returns to the dorm and gets in bed, where he thinks of Naoko as he masturbates.