Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Murakami, Haruki - Brooke Horvath (review date Fall 1993)

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Brooke Horvath (review date Fall 1993)

SOURCE: A review of Norwegian Wood, in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 13, Fall, 1993, pp. 228–29.

[In the following review, Horvath summarizes the plot and themes of Norwegian Wood, comparing the novel to Murakami's other works.]

In 1989 Kodansha International published Alfred Birnbaum's translation of Murakami's 1982 novel A Wild Sheep Chase (reviewed RCF 10.2). Kodansha followed up on that novel's success with the release of Birnbaum's translation of Hard-Boiled Wonderland (1985) in 1991 (reviewed RCF 12.2). Although Murakami's own follow-up to that novel, Norwegian Wood (1987), has not yet been released in this country, it is, along with several other books by Murakami, presently available in a Birnbaum translation in Japan as part of Kodansha's “English Library.”

Kodansha was wise to introduce Murakami to American readers with...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Naomi Matsuoka (essay date 1993)
   2. Yoshio Iwamoto (essay date Spring 1993)
   3. David L. Ulin (review date 4 April 1993)
   4. Brooke Horvath (review date Fall 1993)
   5. Jim McCue (review date 19 November 1993)
   6. Constance Markey (review date 2 January 1994)
   7. Elizabeth Ward (review date 16 January 1994)
   8. Alan Wearne (review date February 1994)
   9. Alexander Harrison (review date 18 March 1994)
   10. Celeste Loughman (review date Spring 1994)
   11. Celeste Loughman (essay date Winter 1997)
   12. Elizabeth Ward (review date 9 November 1997)
   13. Lindsley Cameron (review date 1998)
   14. Edward Hower (review date May 1998)
   15. Matthew C. Strecher (essay date May 1998)
   16. Julian Ferraro (review date 1 May 1998)
   17. Michael Wood (review date 11 May 1998)
   18. Tom Hiney (review date 20 June 1998)
   19. Yoshiko Yokochi Samuel (review date Spring 1999)
   20. Phil Baker (review date 23 July 1999)
   21. Lorna Sage (review date 30 September 1999)
   22. Scott Reyburn (review date 15 November 1999)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright