Dance Dance Dance (Haruki Murakami)

I tried my best not to search and go though online reviews about this book until I finished reading it. This is also the first ever Murakami's book I bought (with the RM200 vouchers given).

She is definitely calling me. From somewhere in the Dolphin Hotel. And apparently, somewhere in my own mind, the Dolphin Hotel is what I seek as well. To be taken into the scene, to become part of that weirdly fateful venue.

To return to the Dolphin Hotel means facing up to a shadow of the past. The prospect alone depresses. It has been all I could do these four years to rid myself of that chill, dim shadow. To return to the Dolphin Hotel is to give up all I'd quietly set aside during this time. Not that what I'd achieved is anything great, mind you. However you look at it, it's pretty much the stuff of tentative convenience. Okay, I'd done my best. Through some clever juggling I'd managed to forge a connection to reality, to build a new life based on token values. Was I now supposed to give it up?

The protagonist, whose name is not mentioned, has returned to the Dolphin Hotel in Sapporo. What was once a sad and peculiar hotel which buried deep in his memory has been transformed into a gleaming modern multistory building where the surrounding areas are booming too. From there, he makes friend with the receptionist with glasses, Yumiyoshi and a 13 years old girl, Yuki. He has also met and talked to the Sheep Man in his cramped room. While watching the movie Unrequited Love starring his former classmate (whose real name was Gotanda), he sees his missing ex-girlfriend, Kiki appear in one of the scenes. All sorts of strange connections are starting to come together.

Okay, I love this one!!! The reading started with quite a slow pace that at one moment, I thought I might give it up on. Lucky I didn't. Having read a few of Murakami's works, I thought this is the most logical I have read so far. There is nothing too absurd to follow. It can be summarized as a journey an ordinary thirty-four year old divorced man launched to reconnect with an old friend, reconsider meanings of loss and abandonment and lastly find love.

Thirty-four is a difficult age. A different kind of difficult than age thirteen, but plenty difficult. Gotanda and I were both thirty-four, both beginning to acknowledge middle age. It was time we did. Readying things to keep us warm during the colder days ahead.

Gotanda put it succinctly. "Love. That's what I need."

"I am so touched," I said. But the fact was, that's what I needed too. 

I love the murder mystery. It doesn't bother me whether or not Gotanda has indeed killed Kiki or Mei for that matter. And the friendship between the protagonist and Gotanda is well-evolved. In the last chapter, just when I thought the story would just end with a happy ending after the reunion of the protagonist and Yumiyoshi (which it eventually did).. but before that, Murakami did a great job at spicing it up with the suspense that the protagonist might lose Yumiyoshi in the dark. My heart skipped several beats. Dahlah I was alone in my apartment that night.

Yumiyoshi took the penlight from me and leafed through the pamphlet. I was casually observing my own shadow, wondering where the Sheep Man was, when I suddenly struck by a horrifying realization: I'd let go of Yumiyoshi's hand! 

My heart leapt into my throat. I was not ever to let go of her hand. I was fevered and swimming in sweat. I rushed to grab Yumiyoshi by the wrist. If we don't let go, we'll be safe. But it was already too late. At the very moment I extended my hand, her body was absorbed into the wall. Just like Kiki has passed through the wall of the death chamber. Just like quicksand. She was gone, she had disappeared, together with the glow of the penlight.

P/S: I am reading this for Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2012.   

After Dark (Haruki Murakami)

"Time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night."

What do u do after dark, when the night falls and u know dawn will not be there for hours?

I used to be nocturnal. I enjoyed the quietness, especially at the deeper stage of night when more and more people went to bed and I was still awake. In fact, in my second year of study, I kept the habit of sleeping around 7pm so that I could wake up at 12am to concentrate on whatever tasks I was doing - be it reading or finishing up assignments. When the night was nearly over, I would either grab a quick nap or jog to recharge myself before I started to attend classes with a cup of coffee. All these changed when I got myself a roommate who slept at 10pm.

"The giant digital screens fastened to the sides of buildings fall silent as midnight approaches, but loudspeakers on storefronts keep pumping out exaggerated hip-hop bass lines. A large game centre crammed with young people; wild electronic sounds; a group of college students spilling out from a bar; teenage girls with brilliant bleached hair, healthy legs thrusting out from microminiskirts; dark-suited men racing across diagonal crossings for the last trains to the suburbs. Even at this hour, the karaoke club pitchmen keep shouting for customers. A flashy black station wagon drifts down the street as if taking stock of the district through its blacktinted windows. The car looks like a deep-sea creature with specialised skin and organs. Two young policemen patrol the street with tense expressions, but no one seems to notice them. The district plays by its own rules at a time like this. The season is late autumn. No wind is blowing, but the air carries a chill. The date is just about to change."

Most Asian cities are vibrant and bustling by day and night. The night marks another new beginning, hardly the end of a day. And Murakami has just painted a picture of what it is like as midnight approaches in Tokyo, Japan.

I had meant to read After Dark for quite some time. I was curious with the kind of stories Murakami could weave around with night (and loneliness) as the theme. However, when I finally finished it, I was left puzzled. I must admit, I couldn't seem to find the true meanings of the stories as they were vague and bizarre (especially the part where Eri Asai was imprisoned in the TV set). How does one relate to another is another thing I couldn't comprehend. For example, Shirakawa, other than being the guy who beat up the Chinese prostitute.. the kind of involvement he has with Eri Asai is never clearly conveyed. Maybe the message is there, I just failed to grasp it.

While reading After Dark, I actually listed down every piece of song Murakami mentioned in the book then played them to get a feel of the atmosphere Murakami was trying to create. And one of them is "I can't go for that" by Hall & Oates. Overall, I like Sputnik Sweetheart and Kafka on The Shore better. Having said that, I still like After Dark quite a lot. I love the characters, particularly Mari Asai who is probably representing many young people these day who are aloof, cynical and indulgent in their own way. I know I am one of them. I also like the way he writes - it is always hard to predict how the story will progress (although it remains another question whether u can truly fathom it or not).

Sputnik Sweetheart (Haruki Murakami)

I was actually in a rush to finish the story (and review) before I started my industrial training.

This is not the first Haruki Murakami’s novel I have read. In the past, I have read Kafka on the Shore and I loved it very much. After that, I tried The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, which unfortunately I had to quit half way through due to the hectic semester but I intend to pick it up soon to reread.

I must admit, I have high expectations toward Haruki Murakami’s works after reading Kafka on the Shore. Perhaps that explains why I felt the disappointment, more and more especially toward the end of the story. To simply put, the story didn’t live up to my expectations. At one point, I was like “Yeah, this is it. This is exactly what I am looking for.” But at the end, I was let down. It is like one of those moments when you are teased and pained in pleasure yet the fun is denied when you are close to the point of orgasm. The feelings of emptiness lingered long after I closed my laptop.

What’s so fascinating about reading Haruki Murakami’s? The stories always bring me to somewhere unknown and unexpected. And whatever that is happening to the characters is beyond my imagination. In Kafka on the Shore, humans can communicate with cats and fishes (or was it something else) rain from the sky. Meanwhile in Sputnik Sweetheart, we are told the story of Miu’s hair turning all white after being abandoned on the Ferris wheel at the amusement park. All these never ceased to amaze me, thus provided me the much needed escape from reality.

Back to Sputnik Sweetheart, the theme revolves around sex, love and loneliness. I would say it is beautifully written - the unrequited love the narrator K has for Sumire, Sumire’s first love to Miu, a woman 17 years older than her and the oppressed love affair between K and his girlfriend, the mother of one of his students. The climax of the story is when Sumire goes missing during her trip to Greece with Miu. Whatever happened to her is never found out (and thus remained a mystery to the readers). While K and Miu carry on with their respective normal lives but part of them is dying with the gone of Sumire. I can't really pinpoint what but I expect more than that for the storyline laaaa. Also, one of the things I failed to fathom - what does the shoplifting incident have to do with anything? Perhaps it does signal an end to be put on K and his girlfriend’s secret love affair. But why is it necessary to K? Or maybe I should have taken my time to read it.

"Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the Earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?"