I remember loving Dance Dance Dance. Wind Up Bird, the first time I was so hooked I read it in three nights, but the second time I read it it didn't really strike me all that much.
I remember one of the first times I came to the city I live in nowadays. I couldn't sleep so I sat on the toilet (for some reason that feel good) and read Norwegian Wood all night. The street was empty and at maybe 3 AM a weird demonstration of old people (I think store owners or a neighbourhood association) marched through the street making a lot of noise - it was very strange. That room was very weird, too - there was a rusty safe on the balcony, among the flowerpots. I think it was also during this trip that I listened to Sonic Youth's Evol staring at the ceiling and understanding how boss that album is and how much I like this city and generally internalising the feeling of that weird room and that weird street and that weird album.
More recently I was travelling by bike through France, sleeping by the Garonne in Toulouse while I was waiting for my girlfriend (who had suddenly left as soon as she got her holidays) to arrive from wherever she was, I believe she was in Prague then. I needed something to read, so I got Wild Sheep Chase in French, and it lasted I think 3 days.
I don't know, Murakami is at his best when he gets nostalgic, but for me the problem is he has a very distant, or very non-militant, or very skeptical, or very postmodern, view on love and on the Japanese equivalent of May 68, while at the same time feeling nostalgia for these same things which he claims weren't even there in the first place. He can't make up his mind, so he just feels sort of sad, shrugs and cooks some spaghetti. I don't know, some of his stuff is rather touching and the surreal elements are hard to forget, but I really wish he took the side of revolution, and of another kind of love.
Haven't read his more recent stuff, though, the last I read was Kafka on the Shore which was a bit embarrassing really, but still a compelling read for some reason.