J'avais choisi ce livre un peu par hasard, sans doute à cause de son titre. Je viens de le terminer, et il est peu de dire qu'il m'a beaucoup marqué. Je ne connaissais pas son auteur japonais. Une histoire de base assez simple, très nostalgique et triste, entièrement écrite en flash-back vingt ans après, mais qui arrive pourtant à saisir parfaitement une part de la complexité des rapports humains. Une écriture limpide qui illumine le mécanisme de la mémoire et l'importance de certains détails associés aux souvenirs. Difficile de ne pas s'identifier aux personnages, qui s'emprisonnent lentement et involontairement dans un labyrinthe émotionnel, la tragédie et la souffrance, parfois même la folie, étant les seules portes de sortie, et de faire quelques parallèles avec sa propre histoire. La vie comme une vaine tentative d'être heureux, but éternel et sans espoir. Faire souffrir sans le vouloir ceux et celles que l'on aime en poursuivant cette illusion égoïste. Quelques élements pour répondre à cette question que je me pose souvent: nos souvenirs nous permettent-ils de survivre dans les mauvais moments, ou nous empêchent-ils d'avancer, comme des semelles plombées qui nous enchaînent au passé?
"I do need that time, though, for Naoko's face to appear. And as the years have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I could recall in five seconds all too soon needed ten, then thirty, then a full minute - like shadows lengthening at dusk. Someday, I suppose, the shadows will be swallowed up in darkness. [...] Which is why I'm writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them."
"The more the memories of Naoko inside of me fade, the more deeply I am able to understand her. I know, too, why she asked me not to forget her. Naoko herself knew, of course. She knew that my memories of her would fade. Which is precisely why she begged me never to forget her, to remember that she had existed. The thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me."
"My arm was not the arm she needed, but the arm of someone else. My warmth was not what she needed, but the warmth of someone else. I felt almost guilty being me."
"- Waiting for the perfect love?
- No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out for me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for.
- I'm not sure that has anything to do with love, I said with some amazement.
- It does, she said. You just don't know it. There are times in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important."
[Haruki Murakami, "Norwegian Wood"]