Chapter 16 "Naoko" and "Midori" whom we miss

What Haruki Murakami attracts the most readers is always the love novels he wrote or the love in the novels. Over four million copies were sold in Japan, a sales record that stood for more than a decade until recently broken by Crying Out Love in the Center of the World. There have been many people trying to analyze the reason why it was so popular.One of the reasons that Haruki Murakami himself admits is that in this novel, he created two protagonists full of vitality, "Naoko" and "Midori". "When I heard the dry rustling sound of stepping on the dead leaves, I felt so pitiful for Naoko. What she was looking for was not my arm, but 'someone'. What she wanted was not my body temperature, but 'somebody'. I started to feel guilty about why I was who I was."

Naoko is the childhood sweetheart girlfriend of the protagonist's only friend.After the death of a good friend, the protagonist and Naoko become completely isolated people at the same time.In this lonely encounter, Naoko needs the warmth of the protagonist, and the protagonist gives her true love. Naoko is lovable, and the protagonist often hopes to heal Naoko from the pain of losing her beloved, but the result is still in vain. Naoko later suffered from serious mental illness and eventually died of suicide. This kind of ethereal and transparent weak woman has always been the female image that Haruki Murakami keeps reappearing in all his novels.

For example, the psychic girl "Axue" in the novel, the gay woman in the novel, the mysterious first love lover "Shimamoto" in the novel, and even the prostitute who died at the beginning of the story. The stories of Haruki Murakami all revolve around this kind of scarred women who need to be rescued, and another important common point is that the protagonists in the stories are destined to lose these women forever every time. This feeling of "there is no way to save" creates the unique tragic atmosphere in Haruki Murakami's novels. There are theories that this "cannot be saved" story mode is derived from the European myth "Sleeping Princess".

As early as the 1970s, before Haruki Murakami officially debuted, he had already written a short story called "The Blind Willow and the Sleeping Woman". (Included in the collection of short stories "The Ghost of Lexington") This novel later became the blueprint for the author's creation. The story of "Blindness" is about the story that the protagonist accompanied his best friend to visit Naoko. Lying on the bed, Naoko read a long poem to the two visitors.The protagonist in the poem is a princess who is trapped in a mountain castle surrounded by blind willows, waiting for the rescue of the prince.

In addition to the terrible blind willow, there is also a carnivorous fly that breeds in the mountains. They will get into people's ears and slowly eat away the contents. The princess has been lying down, waiting for the prince's rescue.Flies are constantly nibbling at the inside of the princess, which may have been hollowed out. At the end of the novel, the protagonist gives Naoko a visiting gift.When she opened it, she found that the chocolate inside had melted. At this moment, all three fell into silence. There are many things that should be said that are not said, and many answers that should be known are not asked.

Finally, the two left, leaving Naoko in the mountains surrounded by blind willows. Although it is said that girls like "Naoko" have always been the core of Haruki Murakami's novels.However, it is often another heroine, Midori, who has a completely different personality, that brings life to the novel. "Sitting in front of you, Alu is like a small animal that has just come to this world to welcome the spring, with a fresh sense of life gushing out from her body. Her eyes are like independent life forms, happily rolling around, either laughing or angry , or frightened or discouraged."

I haven't seen such a vivid expression for a long time. Midori, like Naoko, has experienced many pains in life, but she is strong, cheerful, and strives to survive and maintain normality. She took the initiative to get acquainted with the protagonist, and the two later dated.During the period, the protagonist abandoned Alu many times because of Naoko, but she still forgave her, loved her, and tried her best to save the protagonist from the pain. Haruki Murakami has always believed that although Naoko's position can never be replaced, the one who can save himself from destruction is always a "normal" and "full of vitality" girl like Midori.

Haruki Murakami once admitted that Midori is the most successful heroine he has ever created. This kind of living, real, and ordinary woman adds a real, warm, hope for life to the illusory, abstract, and desperate writing style of Murakami's novels. Yumichi in the middle, and Sakura in the middle, are typical of "Midori" women.They all desperately want to pull the protagonist of the story back to the real world from the hopelessness of nothingness. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they fail. "I love Naoko, and I still love her today. But Midori and I seem to be destined. I want to resist that force, but feel that I can't help being pushed forward by it. My feelings for Naoko What I received was a strangely quiet, gentle and clear love, but it was a completely different feeling for Midori—that kind of feeling could run and dance, breathe and beat, and it shook me."

After so many years, Haruki Murakami has made us nostalgic for "Naoko" and "Midori".