Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Sputnik Sweetheart
Book Review: Murakami Style but Missing an Ending
Summary: 3 Stars
I have read almost all of Murakami's work and truly enjoyed it. The twists and turns of his cutting edge plots are unusually engaging and thought provoking. I was disappointed with Sputnik Sweetheart simply because the ending lacked the spice and creativity of many of his other works. Book Review: How love changes everything
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the second novel I have read by Haruki Murakami, and Sputnik Sweetheart has many of the key ingredients of his other works. The narrator is a benign twenty-something male. The girl he is sweet on disappears without a trace. An enigmatic older woman, with a bizarre past, helps him look for her. Greek islands, the idea of escaping into wells and several cat stories make an appearance.But what made this book different was the real feelings of the characters. They were raw, vunerable and exposed. The three main characters made up a loose love triangle. They were each in love, concerned and anxious about it. Wondering if they should make a move. Confused about their identities and the meaning of life. Living with the thought "if only........"
This book stirred up a lot of thought in me. The discussion of themes like identity, happiness, and purpose in life was really moving. If this is your first Murakami book, you will love it. For those who are familiar with his work, you may have to simply ignore the fact that Murakami uses a character template to display his brilliant themes.
Book Review: ?You?re a lot weirder than you look.?
Summary: 3 Stars
Don't get me wrong - I love Haruki Murakami. I have noticed, however, in reading his works, that the style and tone and themes are often too much alike, and this grows slightly tiresome after a while. How many books can a person write about people disappearing without a trace? In short, the narrator of Sputnik Sweetheart, a schoolteacher, is in love with a strange girl called Sumire who only desire to be a writer. Sumire realizes early on that she has fallen in love with a sophisticated older businesswoman, Miu. Miu gives Sumire a job, and that is where the changes and complications ensue. Interesting ideas in this book include Murakami's brief exploration of the idea of being "attentive". When the main character/narrator had an affair with an older woman earlier in his life, he was "instructed" in how to go about being with a woman when the woman used the analogy of being a good driver versus an attentive driver. The woman insists that being a good driver does not matter as long as the driver is "attentive" and alert. The narrator began to see the connection to his sexual being... being alert and attentive to the things around him. "Not prejudging things, listening to what's going on, keeping your ears, heart and mind open."
Another interesting idea is the idea of your existence being split into two parts. One of the main characters, Miu, felt herself split in half one night... one side had all her sexual desire, her youth. The part the character in the book was left with was a woman with no sexual desire, who held everyone at arm's length and whose hair had turned white overnight. The narrator explores the idea of what is on "the other side"... can people cross over between these two existences?
Finally, Murakami writes, "So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us-that's snatched right out of our hands-even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often, adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness."
I have given these ideas a great deal of thought. No matter the impression we have left nor how intense the experiences we shared with someone, when circumstances change, you lives are separate and you go on like nothing has happened. This is a theme that re-emerges in life multiple times.
Book Review: Murakami's "Sputnik Sweetheart"
Summary: 4 Stars
Haruki Murakami's "Sputnik Sweetheart" (2001) is a novel with themes of rejection, frustration, and lack of self-knowledge. There are three primary characters, a nameless young man who is the narrator, Sumire, a young woman who aspires to be a writer, much taken with Kerouac and the beats, and Miu, an apparently successful and polished career woman in her late 30's. The novel involves a romantic triangle between these three characters. The narrator is in love with Sumire, but Sumire is romantically uninterested in him or in any man. Sumire instead finds herself deeply attracted to Miu, whom she meets at a party. The plot of the novel consists of the working out of the triangle between Sumire, Miu, and the narrator.The slender,spare story of this novel is greatly enhanced by the many ways in which Murakami uses musical themes. Sumire was named after a song by Mozart with a text by Goethe which her mother heard on a recording by Elizabeth Scwartzkopf and Walter Giesking. This song, I found, is Mozart's "Das Veilichen", K. 475 (the violet) the only song Mozart set to a Goethe poem. It tells the story of a beautiful young woman who does some callous things. I think the song is a symbol (another key concept in this novel) of the story as a whole. It is good to read a book that can make creative and appropriate references to Mozart and music -- not to speak of Charles Peirce's philosophy of signs and symbols.
Miu aspired to be a concert pianist before an event occured which changed her life. There are outstanding discussions in this book of music and of the joy of playing the piano. The love of music is tied closely in this book to the welcoming and acceptance of one's human sexuality.
There is a spiritual theme I find implicit throughout this book which might have been more fully developed. The book led me to think about the nature of human desire, about the relationship between sexuality and intimacy, and about frustration and unhappiness resulting from the lack of self-knowledge. The characters in this book are all lonely and all exhibit deep sexual frustration. The exploration of these issues suggests a consideration of the nature of desire, sexuality, change, and self-awareness that are profoundly explored in many religous traditions.
I didn't find the characters in this book fully bore the weight Murakami put upon them. The male narrator for me was the only appealing character in the book. Even here, I had trouble getting involved with a young man who remains deeply obsessed with a woman who rejects him physically in favor of a woman. Miu left me cold, and I didn't like Sumire. The book reads quickly and well, and is highly evocative in its spare prose. The book stayed me and stimulated by thought and reflection long after I had finished it.
Book Review: Gravity of desire.
Summary: 4 Stars
In Murakamis _Sputnik Sweetheart_, people are in love as an exercise in connection (or the lack of it). Sumire (Violet) slouches into the novel as the unattainable object of desire for the narrator, but falls in love with Miu-- a woman 17 years her senior. Miu is endlessly loveable, but utterly unable to love, with her ability to connect lost to her years before in an incident that split her personality. Meanwhile the narrator desires the mother of one of his students, but keeps his heart set on Sumire, who is unable to see him as anything except a friend.
All the characters are split into their desire to love and their lack of ability to love. Murakami plays with that split and makes it literal through a skilful rendering of the realistic and surreal, and even the resolution of the novel is divided-- what connection is there between people besides at least looking at the same moon?
This is my second Murakami (_Norwegian Wood_ was the first) and it confirmed by view of him as an interesting writer whose work I will continue to read. I found that I liked NW better, in that I was less convinced with how the surrealism was applied here-- seemed like it was already too much one way to change into another by the time that it was introduced. I was less than convinced by the ending, and perhaps even a little disappointed. Still, better than much that is out there and well worth the time to read. I am going to try Wind-Up Bird Chronicle next.