Norwegian Wood: Allusions to Reiko's Superpower

I personally think that the movie did not do justice to some central scenes in the novel. It was regrettable that none of the scenes with Midori’s father were shown in the movie. I particularly really liked the passage of Toru going on a full blown tangent about Euripides and the concept of deus ex machina. He explains to the father that deus ex machina is a device where an unsolvable problem gets resolved by some kind of godly power. In respect to many Murakami’s novels, including the Wild Sheep Chase, the presence of some mystical super power is a common theme. Therefore, the passage made me wonder what exactly is the “godly” power in the Norwegian Wood? This is where I thought of Reiko. There is a certain extent to which her “powers” are not as outwardly displayed in either the book or the movie. However, the book is still able to reveal more about her character having an oddly youthful charm, focusing a lot on how pretty her wrinkles are. To my surprise, the movie interpreted this characteristic very literally, yet her youthfulness described in the novel was as having youthful energy and not actually appearing young. Another thing we see in the novel that we do not see in the movie is that she liked to dwell on her past memories of youth yet not paying nearly enough attention to her present. This made me think about her character as someone who wants to go back in time and who wants to regain her “youth” back through using Naoko. For example, all the attempts to regain her youth are demonstrated through how she wore Naoko’s old clothes and how she felt young in terms of how her intercourse with Toru went. My view on Reiko being the super power in this story was confirmed even more after I realized that what Midori’s dad tells Toru about the “ticket”, “Ueno” and “Midori”, perfectly foresees what Reiko does at the end of the story. Reiko refuses to get a plane ticket even though it is much easier to travel in comparison to a train. She departs from Toru at the Ueno station to head to the next location. Toru reaches out to Midori, dumbfounded by where he is. By omitting the following details the film fails to capture Murakami’s splashes of surrealism and eeriness, making the film one old boring love story -- definitely not something that Norwegian Wood novel is. 

Angelina Not (Lina)