Book Review

4 January 202224 August 2023

Synopsis & Review | Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel, Vintage Books, 2001 (originally published in 1999)

Summary Synopsis

Sumire is a close friend of mine. She dropped the university at her sophomore year to become a novelist. And she visited my apartment on weekends, she showed me her manuscripts. I love her, but she didn’t have love feeling for me. At a time, she came across a merchant lady Miu, she became an assistant of Miu, then Sumire couldn’t write a novel.

Miu and Sumire went to France and Italy on business, on their way home, they dropped in a Greek island as a vacation. At the Greek island, Sumire suddenly disappeared. I went to the Greek island requested by Miu, but we can’t find Sumire. A day, I found two texts in a floppy disk written by Sumire…

This novel ninth long novel by Haruki Murakami, and the third romance novel follows Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun, originally published in 1999. But he has not written a romance long novel again until now. Also, this novel is an unusual romance novel that describes today’s persons who have no existence or reality who can’t fall in love really, seriously and passionately.

This novel is a story about Sumire, and the substantial main character in this novel is Sumire. The main descriptions of the first half of this novel are descriptions about Sumire from the viewpoint of the narrator like Nick Carraway in the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, and talks about Miu of which the narrator heard by Sumire. Sumire is an interface or a narrator of the narrator, to see the world and to understand himself. And the narrator narrates the story which is not a neutral and fair act. There are choices, selections and interpretations by the narrator. I think the narrator is one of the readers who interprets the story like the concept of death of the author by Roland Barthes.

The name ”Sputnik Sweetheart” is the secret nickname of Miu named by Sumire. So Sputnik Sweetheart is Miu, and Sputnik (means "traveling companion” in Russian) is Sumire. Sumire and Miu are beings like a satellite or Sputnik, lost existence, reality and lively feeling. Their hearts were shunted by an iron shell and went away from others by centrifugal force. And Sumire and Miu can’t express or perform true moving or emotional expressions by art. In this novel, a few times it mentioned the word “lesbian (love)”. But rather than it, I think this novel expresses women’s platonic love and intimate friendship.

The subtheme of this novel is writing, writing novel and story, and what are story and writing. Writing and story for Sumire (and today’s people in this novel), the methods fill in the gap with between reality and self or own mind. For Sumire, writing novels is the meaning of life, but she had no reality, existence and true genius or talent as an artist. From the time Sumire met Miu, Sumire did not have to fill in the gap with the reality, because Miu is a being on the other side and was a fine pianist but hadn’t true genius, equal to Sumire. So by her fate and experiences, she can’t complete a novel she wanted to write and must disappear in her youth.

I think the description of chapter 5 is Murakami’s literary and philosophical reflection and question on self and his thought of writing novels. And this novel is a reflection on Murakami himself through Sumire, and through Sumire through the narrator. The narrator partly lived in Sumire’s story, and the narrator’s meaning of life is the story of Sumire. So Murakami made and lived the story of the narrator and Sumire, wrote and implied his thought of writing by this novel.

And, physicality or embodiment is a key to this novel. In this novel, the narrator by Murakami played sport first time. Sumire and Miu are persons who lost their physicality, so they can’t do and feel real or sexual love. It may be the notion of Murakami, as literature or writing needs physicality.

I think this novel resembles Murakami’s first romance Norwegian Wood very much. The relationships, Toru Watanabe-Naoko-Reiko and the narrator-Sumire-Miu resemble. Also, positioning of characters, the structure of story and locations, last phone call, Reiko and Miu abandoned playing piano, Naoko and Sumire are the beings lost existences and emotionally unstable, they resemble. And Norwegian Wood is tragic, humid and melancholic. Instead, this novel is dreamy, light, dry and refreshing. So I think Sputnik Sweetheart is the 90’s variation of Norwegian Wood, the story around 1969-1970. And the structure of many elements made the story and its content and meaning, so I have resembled but different feeling by the two novels.

This novel is one of the fine works of Murakami, and a dreamy and wonderful but mysterious "romance" novel written by Murakami's original style.

And this is a structuralist novel that consists of the structure of the story and positionings of its elements as characters, places and notions. The narrator is a usual (and empty) person, but the structure, its elements, their positioning and his view make the story and the meaning. But also this novel is an existentialist novel that expresses the nothingness of existence of people today. But Murakami didn't write answers such as Sumire's whereabouts and what is a story and writing. He left answers and considerations behind readers.

Details of the Book

Sputnik Sweatheart
Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator)
Vintage Publishing, London, United Kingdom, 3 October 2002
240 pages, £8.99
ISBN: 978-0099448471

Synopsis & Review | After Dark by Haruki Murakami & Jay Rubin, Vintage Books, 2008 (originally published in 2004)

Summary Synopsis

At autumn midnight, in Shibuya, a 19 years old boyish and innocent girl, a student of the University of Foreign Studies, Mari Asai was reading a thick book at Denny’s. Her sister’s ex-classmate Tetsuya Takahashi found her and shared the table with her. Then Kaoru, the manager of a love hotel, Alphaville, got her to speak and help a Chines prostitute girl, Dongli who was ruined and robbed of her belongings.

Simultaneously, Mari’s older sister Eri Asai who had been slept for two months was shut into the room in a TV screen by the Man with No Face, and suffered meaningless violence…

Mari had grown by to come across night people, Takahashi, Kaoru, Korogi and a bartender. In the morning she got back home, got into Eri’s bed…

Book Review

After Dark is Haruki Murakami’s 12th long novel, and an experimental 18 chapters long novel describes occurrences during a midnight by the objective third-person viewpoint. And each part is attached to pictures of a clock, and it shows the passage of time. The original Japanese hardcover edition is 294 paged book. But substantial content or plot of this novel is a novelette, and it isn’t significant story. This novel only describes very very long midnight occurrences during 7 hours. I think this novel is short as a long novel, very long as a story of 6 or 7 hours occurrences. Because there are lots of short chattings and objective descriptions.

This story is the story of to connect, to sync and to exchange symbols, metaphorical meanings or something among three girls (Mari, Eri and Dongli), and between Mari and night people, Eri and Man with No Face, and Dongli and Shirakawa. Each chapter is basically divided by the episodes of Mari Asai, Eri Asai, Kaoru and Shirakawa, each plot progresses simultaneously, and each episode connects directly or indirectly in real or metaphorical meanings. It may signify fragmental connections and information in the internet space. The situation was described by the third-person point like the view of Google Earth and Google Street View.

Mari knew Curtis Fuller's Five Spot After Dark, her most favourite movie is Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, and wore a Boston Red Sox cap (She was given the cap by a friend only, and was not interested in baseball.). These things mean randomness of knowledge in the global culture and the internet. And, Mari’s coming across a Chinese girl Dongli, Shirakawa’s escape imply random encounter of the era of globalization and internet.

Takahashi’s saying “Say your sister is in some other Alphaville kind of space—I don’t know where—and somebody is subjecting her to meaningless violence”, and Mari’s reply “In a metaphorical sense?”. (p.130) ”Aspects of the interrelationship of thought and action” (p. 153) of which Shirakawa considered. They imply the most important theme of this novel. There are proper or accidental connections in physical or metaphorical senses in the world, for better or worse, like a network or the internet. So the contemporary world is moving and changing.

In this novel, Murakami splendidly described the situation, state, atmosphere and communication in the age of network and globalization and the 00’s internet and cellphone era. The era in which people connect through the internet and cellphones, and meet at third places such as family restaurants, convenience stores, fast-food shops and Starbucks café as points of networks. Third places connect things and people from global to local.

Also this novel is a story of experiences of Mari during 7 hours. Mari came across and talked with adult night people, exchanged kindness and tenderness, then she grew up. And it’s profound and beautiful experiences have positive influence on some characters and readers, and give readers good feelings.

This story is beautiful and impressive, it's a precious thing for me, but it's not masterpiece and grand narrative. I think this novel is one of fine works of Murakami.

Details of the Book

After Dark
Haruki Murakami (Author), Jay Rubin (Translator)
Vintage Books, London, 5 June 2008
208 pages, £6.99
ISBN: 978-0099506249

Book Review | Drive My Car from Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel, Vintage, 2017 (Originally Published in 2014)

This story is a story about driving as a spiritual activity, acting as a common activity and differences between men and women. The content is not directly relevant to the Beatles’ song, Drive My Car. But concerning from the lyrics, “She said, ‘baby, can’t you see I want to be famous, a star on the screen. But you can do something in between’.” and “Baby, you can drive my car. Yes I’m gonna be a star.” (A girl said to a boy.), this title is an irony to Kafuku.

This story is a story about car as a machine. But car is not only a machine, one’s driving reflects the human mind, sensibility, characteristics and personality. Driving a car in this novel is a psychological and spiritual activity. It is like playing a musical instrument, communicating to the environment or the world, a reflection of self and a spiritual treatment for one’s mind. And it’s an enjoyable and refreshing act also a life-threatening act that hurts and damages other(s) and self.

Also, this story is a story about actors and acting. Acting is a psychological and spiritual activity too. Kafuku said he can become someone by acting and it’s fun, and people all play roles. And, on Novelist as a Profession Murakami wrote he can become someone by writing a novel. In this novel, I think the profession of actor is a symbol of today’s people. He acts in a role made by other(s). We all act something social roles, but by the roles, anyone lost their true selves. It’s essential problem in the contemporary world.

The notion by Kafuku in the first part, suggests women can’t separate consciousness and action, and mind and body while an activity. So he founded a kind of tension in women's drivings. And women can truly act a role in a drama. So his wife couldn't separate herself and roll, and she slept with actors with which she co-starred.

Watari Misaki, an inelegant and manly woman who smokes her favourite Marlboro cigarettes (a symbol of American masculinity), is a person who can across men and women. Watari in Japanese means “go across” or “cross over”, and Misaki means “cape”. She can go across between capes of men and women, can talk naturally with men as an individual, or can understand the minds of each of men and women. She helped Kafuku to heal his heart by put him in the passenger seat, driving his car and talking about his and her past.

And this novel is Murakami's own thoughts about and reflection on writing and woman. Driving and actings is an activity to enjoy its operation, transition and moving. And I think both of them are partial metaphors of writing a novel. Acting is an activity of interpreting and tracing others’ stories. On Novelist as a Profession Murakami wrote to write a novel is to ride on or to fill a content with a proper vehicle or container. (This long short story is a small-medium size vehicle.) In these two activities are equal to writing a novel, Murakami described the mental differences of men and women. On these activities to commit stories, states of men and women appear differently, men can’t understand the core of the state of mind of women and its reason and mechanism.

Via this short story, Murakami succeeds to express about the mysteriousness of women he thinks, through to describe driving car and acting.

Details of the Book

Men Without Women

Haruki Murakami

Bungeishunju, Tokyo, 7 October 2016

300 pages, JPY 748

ISBN: 978-4167907082

Men Without Women: Stories
Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator), Ted Goossen (Translator)
Vintage, London, 17 May 2018
240 pages, £9.99
ISBN: 9781784705374
Contents: