Norwegian Wood was definitely a different experience to me than reading Murakami's other novels. In an obvious sense, the storyline took a more realistic turn as opposed to A Wild Sheep Chase or 1Q84. Rather than having an alternate universe or talking animals, the experiences of the Norwegian Wood characters all felt realistic, although Murakami added a twist to each of them. People fall in love, a love triangle forms, but it isn't a fairy tale. Instead, multiple characters commit suicide, some are committed to psychiatric facilities, others become estranged from each other, and so on. It was a tragic and bizarre love story with no clear happy ending, but a love story nonetheless; Murakami puts a heavier emphasis on the romance in this novel, as opposed to some of his other novels that I've read where the plot lies elsewhere.
However, the novel still feels very Murakami-esque in qualities that match other Murakami novels. The male character, though on the younger side, has a personality and tone of narration typical of Murakami's protagonists. And like in many of Murakami's novels, the male character has multiple female "love interests" that the protagonist jumps between, specifically Naoko and Midori. The way Murakami describes the female characters' physical appearances is also similar to how he details them in other novels, with the infamous blue dress, in this novel on Hatsumi, popping up toward the end of the novel.
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