Norwegian Wood has most of the elements you would normally find in Haruki Murakami‘s works – pop and classical music, books, people with unusual personalities and mental disorders, strange places, humor, violence and casual, passionate and violent sex narrated too fast you’d think the manuscript suffered a huge cut from the Board of Censors but if you’ve been following Murakami’s works, you’d notice that in this book, though he was often quoted denying it, the author has taken a break from the usual “what that just a dream or did that really happened” kind of story. Norwegian Wood is more inclined on the romantic side of literature.

Listening to an orchestral version of Norwegian Wood being played on the plain cabin as it lands on the German runway, Toru Watanabe was reminded of his first love Naoko, his best friend Kizuki’s girlfriend. Hearing her favorite Beatles song, he was transported 20 years back when he had to choose between a woman who chooses to live in the past and another who pushes him move on to the future.

As the end draws near, one of the two women takes action to make it easier for him to choose between the two of them.