Who Failed Naoko?

 Naoko’s fate in Norwegian Wood is nothing short of a tragedy. Despite seeing some improvement and eventually moving to receive different treatment at a specialized facility, Naoko takes her own life. While an answer is given to the question of “why” from Naoko’s perspective, we do not hear much about “why” is in the sense of “why/how was this allowed to happen”. With all of the other ways the sanatorium represents the distorted Other World that Murakami is known for, it seems that everything there is not as it seems. For example, Reiko is not a doctor but just another patient. While touted as a positive point for the sanatorium, at least to Toru, this is a clear distortion of what a sanatorium should be. Further, the other patients in the sanatorium are barely alive. This is excused as it is a sanatorium after all where people are of course ill and there to get better, yet the lack of patients resembling anything close to the road to recovery is an unsettling coincidence at best and a bona fide representation of the sanatorium at work at worst. These all lead me to the conclusion that the sanatorium is not actually a sanatorium and its only claim to be one, is its name.

Realizing that this is not actually a sanatorium but just something calling itself a sanatorium, completed my understanding of Naoko’s fate. In an attempt to receive help, she did not get any; She got whatever the sanatorium gave her. That may or may not have been helpful, but it clearly did not save her in the long run. One thing preventing me from writing off the sanatorium as completely anti-medicine is that they do refer Naoko to another place in the end. However, I prefer to read this as them trying to escape blame for what they think will eventually happen to Naoko, which she does actually do at the sanatorium. The fact that Reiko’s condition does not give her suicidal tendencies, like Naoko’s, is purely her luck. The fact that the sanatorium has helped her is a combination of coincidence and mildness. The fact that it seemed to help Naoko was pure coincidence.

It is clear that the sanatorium is only suited for treating non-critical issues and barely treats those. Thus, I would say that the sanatorium failed Naoko and led to her suicide. Naoko turned to the sanatorium for help, not expecting to receive something that passes for help at something that seems like a sanatorium from someone who just happens to be called a doctor. Naoko dealt with herself in the best way she could but ultimately, the application of the logic of names, as in the real world, in the Other World killed Naoko. Although appointed as her doctor, Reiko was just a patient herself and tricked by the same "sanatorium" that Naoko was. Two victims, one killed, one spared, all watched by Toru.

Timothy Obiso