According to Giorgio Amitrano’s (Murakami’s Italian translator) preface to the novel, Norwegian Wood was supposed to be much shorter.
Murakami was planning to begin his longest novel yet, Dance Dance Dance, when he started writing Norwegian Wood (called Il giardino sotto la pioggia, “the garden under the rain”, at the time). He detached himself from tradition and spoke to both the newest generations and the older ones. Nevertheless, Murakami changed the idea of Japanese literature. Both Japanese and Western readers loved Norwegian Wood, while old fans could not help but feel disappointed. This coming-of-age novel, with young protagonists struggling to accept the world as it is, became an international bestseller. Then Norwegian Wood came out and everything changed.
That, mixed with a love for hard-boiled narrative, was Murakami’s trademark. His fanbase loved the way he approached reality and made it fantastic and whimsical. Raymond Chandler‘s hard-boiled novels and a fantasy outlook on life inspired Murakami’s style: in his stories, both readers and characters were completely detached from reality. He published renowned novels such as A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. This novel’s first success convinced him to keep writing. He was 29 when he decided to try his hand at writing and published Hear The Wind Sing.
When Norwegian Wood came out in 1987, 38-years-old Haruki Murakami was already known as a writer in Japan.
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