Norwegian Wood

The late-1960s Tokyo a middle-aged narrator looks back on: a spartan men's dormitory near Waseda, the record shops and drinking alleys of Shinjuku, and long aimless walks with Naoko out from Yotsuya along the old outer moat toward Iidabashi. A quieter, grieving city under the student unrest of the decade.

Toru Watanabe

Toru's dormitory, Bunkyo

Chapter 2

Toru's first Tokyo home is a strict private dormitory in the hills of Bunkyo, run by a shadowy foundation, where a neat, stammering roommate the students nickname Storm-Trooper drills the day into order. It grounds the narrator's arrival in the city and his early distance from the people around him.

Chapter 2

inspired by The novel never names the dormitory, but its regimented flag-raising mornings, tatami rooms and cramped hierarchy match Wakeijuku, the all-male hall in Mejirodai where Murakami himself lived as a student. Sited there.

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