Sputnik Sweetheart: A Novel
by Haruki Murakami
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Book Summary Information
Author: Haruki MurakamiTranslator: Philip Gabriel
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-04-09
ISBN: 0375726055
Number of pages: 210
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Sputnik Sweetheart: A Novel
Book Review: Poetic and surprising story - presence of absence
Summary: 5 Stars
I am still uncertain I grasped all the underlying meanings and intentions of Haruki Murakami in this poetic story but know that this was a unique read; one which requires time and thought in order to really "get into" and enjoy. The story takes several turns and its focus shifts between its three characters.The story starts with the description of Sumire, a bit of a lost soul who wants to become a writer. Sumire writes all the time, but something is lacking. Her male friend, the narrator of the story whose name is never revealed, encourages her that "a story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side..."
what he really means is that Sumire needs more time, more life experience, maybe more pain in order to breath life into the story; Sumire however, seems to remain on the search for the "other side". When Sumire falls in love with Miu, a much older business woman, her life undergoes a tremendous change and suddenly she is no longer able to write. As if somehow the focus of her life has shifted... The voice of the narrator who has been telling us about Sumire changes its tone and we now understand that he is an active participant in the story - he is in love with Sumire but understands that his love for this meaningful and special soul companion will not be returned. This is the pain he has to suffer.
The story reaches its climax in the Greek island where Sumire and Miu have gone for vacation. One night the narrator receives a telephone call from Miu who begs him to come to the Island at once.
It is never clear who is the real hero of the story as the tale shifts from one character to another and all characters are endearing in the same tender vulnerable way. Maybe the male narrator, speaking in its own voice is the one who touches your heart the most but you can feel the pain and lonliness of all characters and their endless search for something which is impossible to get.. at least not on this side.
The story is definitely surprising - starting from its special name and characters and follow its intriguing tale, touching the real and the supernatural in a way that is in total harmony and agreement with all the book.
Sputnik Sweetheart deals with the presence and absence of people and how absence can be present in every nuance of ones life. I think this is also intended in the name of the story and the explanation given in the preface to the term "Sputnik" ending in the words: "but the satellite was never recovered"...which should have given me the first clue to what is about to happen, one of the many clues and signs that Murakami will give along the book. The book by the way is not depressing as it may sound. Sad and poetic yet you can feel a life force running underneath.
Summary of Sputnik Sweetheart: A Novel
Haruki Murakami, the internationally bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, plunges us into an urbane Japan of jazz bars, coffee shops, Jack Kerouac, and the Beatles to tell this story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited loves.A college student, identified only as ?K,? falls in love with his classmate, Sumire. But devotion to an untidy writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments?until she meets Miu, an older and much more sophisticated businesswoman. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, ?K? is solicited to join the search party and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous, haunting visions. A love story combined with a detective story, Sputnik Sweetheart ultimately lingers in the mind as a profound meditation on human longing.
Sputnik Sweetheart finds Haruki Murakami in his minimalist mode. Shorter than the sweeping Wind-up Bird Chronicle, less playfully bizarre than A Wild Sheep Chase, the author's seventh novel distills his signature themes into a powerful story about the loneliness of the human condition. "There was nothing solid we could depend on," the reader is told. "We were nearly boundless zeros, just pitiful little beings swept from one kind of oblivion to another."
The narrator is a teacher whose only close friend is Sumire, an aspiring young novelist with chronic writer's block. Sumire is suddenly smitten with a sophisticated businesswoman and accompanies her love object to Europe where, on a tiny Greek island, she disappears "like smoke." The schoolteacher hastens to the island in search of his friend. And there he discovers two documents on her computer, one of which reveals a chilling secret about Sumire's lover.
Sputnik Sweetheart is a melancholy love story, and its deceptively simple prose is saturated with sadness. Characters struggle to connect with one another but never quite succeed. Like the satellite of the title they are essentially alone. And by toning down the pyrotechnics of his earlier work, Murakami has created a world that is simultaneously mundane and disturbing--where doppelgängers and vanishing cats produce a pervasive atmosphere of alienation, and identity itself seems like a terribly fragile thing. --Simon Leake
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