In Norwegian Wood, popular culture stands as a backdrop and sometimes a catalyst for the action of the story, while the narrator's reflective and ironic nature influences the story by setting its tone and by allowing readers to enter into Watanabe's perspective.

The novel opens with the thirty-seven-year-old Watanabe on an airplane. A version of the Beatles' song “Norwegian Wood” starts to play, and it triggers a wave of memories that almost knocks Watanabe out of his seat. He leans forward, holding his face in his hands “to keep [his] skull from splitting open.” A stewardess notices his distress and checks on him, but Watanabe downplays his experience. The music changes to a Billy Joel song, but Watanabe is still caught up in the memories triggered by “Norwegian Wood,” and he recalls all the people he has lost. This popular culture reference gives us an entrance into Watanabe's story as he looks back at his life with nostalgia and some longing.

Even though Watanabe and his companions are Japanese, they are very much caught up in American popular culture. Watanabe reads F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Updike. Naoko continually requests that Reiko play “Norwegian Wood.” These popular culture experiences stand in the background of the story's plot as Watanabe navigates his way between romantic relationships with two women.

Watanabe often takes a reflective and even ironic tone as he relates his story. He is looking back now from a distance of many years. He can see more clearly than he could when he was in the midst of the events. He can recognize the irony in his experiences, and he is rather cynical about them, grasping now the meanings behind what he experienced at the time and better understanding the deaths of Naoko and Kizuki. Watanabe's narration allows readers to enter into both his past and his present from his point of view.