I don't like (the first six chapters of) Norwegian Wood (Bruce)

 I have a confession. I personally did not enjoy the first six chapters of Norwegian Wood. In fact, I might even say I despised it. I have always found Murakami's writing to be inconsistent. Some parts I found to be exceedingly compelling, flush with symbolism and elegant prose, whereas other parts feel vague, trite, and in terms of dialogue, increasingly awkward and unnatural. I understand that this could be the result of differing styles from translators, but Norwegian Wood is translated by Jay Rubin, a personal favorite of mine (Wind-up Bird Chronicle), and even within the work, as I will discuss later, I found inconsistencies to be abundant. In the first part of Norwegian Wood, I found all the hallmarks of Murakami that I did not enjoy, i. e., the strange obsession with cigarettes, coffee, and alcohol, as well as random and forced references to popular music, and, of course, slightly demeaning depictions of women. To demonstrate my disdain for these qualities, I will parody the worst parts of a Murakami novel, but in a modern context to truly illustrate the imagery it invokes in my brain. 

"She was no looker by any means. Her face was pleasant enough, but her nose was slightly crooked, with a minute scar, no doubt a remnant of some reconstructive surgery. She was plump, but her pale flesh somehow sculpted to form a full and pleasing figure, with large, supple breasts. She ordered a mocha cappuccino vente as I sipped my chai latte, with no sweetener. The speakers in the Starbucks finished the few remaining notes of Taylor Swift's Shake it Off before playing Rhapsody in Blue. She pulled out a vape pen and took a long swig before I turned my attention back to my copy of Ender's Game."

The point here is to illustrate if we translate everything Murakami talks about in a modern context, (Beatles to Taylor Swift, Beethoven to Gershwin, coffee to Starbucks, cigarettes to vape, and Great Gatsby to Ender's Game), it sounds vapid and pointless, except at least Shake it Off is about a positive message rather than pretending a Beatles' song about a metrosexual hipster going on a spree of adultery is anything of substance.