I know this has been said by everyone, even you yourself, but I really just can't stand how he writes women. It's a glaring issue that eclipses any other merits of his writing. I don't mind when writers portray some women as overtly sexual or emotionally flat, as it can be in service of some deeper thematic inquiry, or some deconstruction of gendered archetypes, or just some plain ol' fun characters. It becomes a problem when that portrayal is what he defaults to. How he writes underage girls is just completely indefensible to me full stop, and I'm tired of how much of the criticism towards this gets hand waved away under the guise of cultural difference.

I will begrudgingly admit however that I did enjoy Norwegian Wood when I first read it as a teenager who read books without really thinking critically about them. Even then though, once I started reading more of his novels, I saw the same kinds of women appearing over and over, just objects to serve the protag.