Bursts of Autumn Energy: Reading Norwegian Wood

“…nothing but scenery, that view of the meadow in October, returns again and again to me like a symbolic scene in a film. Each time it appears, it delivers a kick to some part of my mind. Wake up, it says. I’m still here. Wake up and think about it.” —Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

I dread the coming of winter. I am one of those people for whom it is much more difficult to be happy in the wintertime. I suspect that there are legions of us. I’m always surprised when I meet someone who says that they prefer the season, who says it not just to say it, but with a smile in their voice and eyes. I want to not believe in them, but obviously, their existence in front of me is evidence: it’s not winter that’s the problem, but me. I grew up in Vancouver. It’s grey there all winter, grey and damp and the winter gets into your bones and brain and won’t let you go. Ontario has been better to me; here, there is sun and crispness. Still, the truth remains that in summer, I am (for the most part) freer. Toronto has been a special revelation: an entire city that seems to suffer from seasonal depression. Not that I needed an excuse, but I am enabled in my gloom by a place that bursts into inexplicable, libidinous joy for four months and then retreats. I’ve never personally attended a parka burning, but if you told me that they took place every June, people in seasonally optimistic shorts dancing around the bonfire, I would not be shocked. Summer here is glorious. Then it fades. I don’t remember exactly when I read Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. I think it was in the period after I first moved to Toronto. I moved to the GTA from Ottawa in May of 2014. I lived with my uncle in Etobicoke for four months, ostensibly looking for a real job. By October, I was fed up. I took the TTC into the city, plucked a hosting job off the heavy branch of the service industry, and found a sublet in a strange, cavernous converted house on Indian Road. It had a living room with a fireplace, which was a bonus because it was freezing. In the following months, I achieved a strange, frenetic happiness that made me question my self-control. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt this in the fall, but spurred on by the move and my post-undergrad surge of self-assurance, it was my most intense episode. I was the star of every story I walked into. I made decisions that shocked me the morning after. In retrospect, I think that period of mania was an attempt to block out, with impulsivity and recklessness and obsessive planning for future success, a sense of dread. I must do everything now, before I leave myself again. I love this time of year, the coolness broken by a last few warm, sparkling days, the surreal colours, the sense of possibility and change. When I experience a burst of autumn energy, I recognize it now, know how to ride it out. I can separate these twin feelings, my joy and mourning for the last bit of summer. As I remember it, Norwegian Wood is about depression, examined through a character who loves people who have it. There are insights about depression, but the protagonist can never quite wrap his head around it, because of either fear or inability. It’s a novel set on the edges of depression—it’s walked towards, touched but not grasped. I count Norwegian Wood among my favourite novels. I remember parts of it (and the feeling of it) vividly, but a friend who borrowed it recently talked about plot points that were fuzzy to me. I’ve wanted to read it again, have tried over and over, and I never make it past the first few pages. Knowing where it goes makes the beginning too hard. A couple years ago, I spent the evening of the anniversary of my friend’s mom’s death with her. We drank red wine and ate chocolate on my balcony. It was already getting dark early, but it wasn’t cold yet, so we sat outside in the dark. She said that her mom killed herself in the fall because she couldn’t bear to wait for another summer. Across years and death, I felt understood by someone I’d never met. I gather my dread in October. I steel myself. I know that winter will be hard, but I’ve made it through every one so far, and although it’s not a steady progression, each seems to get a little easier. I think this is the year I’ll read Norwegian Wood again.