I just finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I think I have to retract my statement.

Murakami is the kind of author who frustrates and humiliates you,and makes you earn your keep. He tries your patience in such a strange, attractive way, and then after hours of perplexing and fascinating characters and plotlines, it ends. It's not terribly different from having all the excess in your brain set on fire and then perfumed.

I think I need to read this book again.