Kono monogatari wa fushigi ni utsukushikatta. Nihongo de wa eigo yori toku ni omoshirokatta. Murakami Haruki wa ichiban suki na sakka desu. Sugi no "Underground" wa tanoshimi desu!

Written between Hard-Boiled Wonderland and Dance, Dance, Dance, Norwegian Wood is a very different sort of novel for Murakami.

Set in Tokyo and in a mountain sanatorium in the late sixties, it is, one suspects that this is a very autobiographical, Murakami's gentle protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. This is the story of a college student, Toru Watanabe, trying to find himself, to grow up, to make a commitment to someone, and to be true to that commitment.

The choice of the song Norwegian Wood as a title is appropriate, especially regarding the song's little known subtitle (take a look at the Rubber Soul album and you'll see it), This bird has flown.

Watanabe once had (and was had by) two girls, one of whom is sliding slowly into complete mental disintegration, (this would be the bird that has flown) the other - feisty, independent, but as desperately lonely as Watanabe - lodging the claims of love, life, and a warm body against those of past pledges-pledges Watanabe views somewhat differently than the girl in question.

... First of all, this is an early effort-one would expect a bit of a shortfall in the sophistication department given Murakami's age when hr wrote it. More importantly, however, is the subject matter. This is a story of personal introspection about a romance-not about the alienation and anomie inherent to complex, inhumane, technocratic societies. Of course the elements of style Murakami would impose on these two radically different subjects is different.

At it's core, this is a tale of loss. Watanabe ends up losing his love in various ways and to various degrees throughout the book till she's finally totally gone in the end. The book is about how Watanabe copes with these various elements of loss.

I can understand why some fans of this author would find the book disconcerting as it is well outside the typical structure of a Murakami novel and the effects of this departure, given the extraordinarily distinct style Murakami normally utilizes, seem magnified over what would be expected from a more mainstream author. Don't let such comments dissuade you from reading this novel. I greatly admire Murakami's other work and liked this as well. It's a book that can be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone willing to accept it for what it is rahten than impose their own expectations on it.

How should I start. I first read this book 7 years ago in its Chinese translation. But after reading this newly published version it all came back to me. All the sad feelings and the helplessness. This book is just too wonderful it's beyond description. And I can't help falling into the roles in the story while listening to the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood". You have to get your hand on this book (preferably the Biritish versionto feel it for yourself. I agree with one of the reviews here this book do feel like J.D. Salinger "Catcher in the Rye". Murakami sort of admitted it himself by writing a line mentioning the book. But "Norwegian Wood" is so powerful in its own way bewteen life and dead; love and hate. This book is a lot more than its protracted images of a love story of a Tokyo college student, although it's more of a guy's romance. Its odd sex patterns and almost frequent suicides mark the authenticity of Japanese culture while strongly persevere the usual influence of American literature and culture in Murakami's works. Maybe it has something to do with Murakami being born in Kobe, a wide-open trading port where Western cultures were available in the early 1900s. Anyway, the reason I am writing this review (at 3:30 a.m.) is that I just can't fall asleep after reading it, even it's the second time in 7 years.

You know a book is good when it sells so many copies it shocks the author into moving halfway across the world.

It's not the selling a whackload of copies, it's the fact that Murakami was appalled that the book he called an "experiment" became his most popular work.

If you've never read any of Murakami's novels before, then you won't understand how entirely -different- Norwegian Wood is from them. Murakami is a guy who writes about strange women with magic ears, men possessed by malevolent sheep, evil politicians with magical powers of defilement, teenagers who push their boyfriends off motorcycles, and cybernetic mind control. The last thing one would expect from him is a pure and simple love story, but here it is, and fortunately or unfortunately, it is one of his most intriguing and skillful works.

The story's pretty easy to understand, but the layers of meaning are not. Murakami's fascination with wells might zoom right over the heads of readers who are either unaccustomed to his narrative, or aren't paying attention to metaphor.

Essentially, Norwegian Wood (yes, named after the song by the Beatles) is a love story, but one with unexpected twists of fate, tragedy, comedy, and stuffed with melancholia. Murakami might not write a very convincing 20-year old, but the slight over-maturity of the main character's voice can be ignored in favor of the insights he gives.

I wouldn't reccomend reading this book first if you're seriously interested in Murakami's works, it's not the best to represent his style. But if you aren't up for TV people or walking through walls, then read Norwegian Wood.

This is the third book of Murakami's I've read in the last several months - the other two being The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles (Wonderful) and A Wild Sheep Chase (Great). However, about halfway through Dance, Dance, Dance I realized that there was very little difference between the three books in terms of the general features of the plot: Disaffected 30-something guy looking for a missing woman and/or abandoned by same, psychic teen-age girl, spacey hookers, comings and goings between various layers of reality, etc. For a writer with the supposed breadth this guy has, you'd think he could do a little more in terms of exploring other ideas.

Also, this book just didn't read as well as the other two - whether it was the translation or simply the way it was written, I have no way of knowing. But several times I found myself cringing at the awkward turns of phrase that kept turning up.

I thought the last 70 pages or so of the book were very good, but the vast majority of the remainder seemed to consist of pointless meandering.

I've rated his other books five stars but this one gets two for the following reasons: (1) It's simply not anywhere as good as the other two, and (2) I'm totally burned out on the overall theme that has been repeated in all three.

I couldn't get out of the bathtub until i finished this book! It's so engrossing, although you might not find that until you've realized you're deep inside a contemporary Tokyo mystery story. It's so engrossing that I accidentally found myself reading at the dinner table at Tony Roma's instead of talking to my boyfriend. However, if you get THAT excited over Murakami, just read aloud b/c you'll be spreading the word, and it's definitely worth sharing. In fact, my boyfriend thought the description of the Dolphin Hotel in the opening pages was brilliant. It's not any one thing that distinguishes this novel, but it's unique all the same. The narrator has an almost fetishistic mode of observation. He constantly undermines himself and his status by describing those around him in larger-than-life terms and delineating their various incredible qualities. but by the end of the novel, you realize that the one who comes out intact is our very own, humble and unhip narrator. And what a relief that is after all the close calls we experience vicariously through him! Dance Dance Dance is a paradoxical novel b/c it's both lighthearted and very easy to read while also raising and considering deep epistemological questions. I loved that combination, and it made the book both comic and also heartbreaking, a nice duality in these times.

Far superior to its successor, the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, this book wonderfully concludes the story of a protagonist started with "Hear The Wind Sing," "Pinball 1973," and "A Wild Sheep Chase." In this book, the protagonist, a self-employed loner who lives outside the "normal" conventions of the Japanese salaryman and society, sets out on a quest to find his girlfriend from "A Wild Sheep Chase." (For those who have not read "A Wild Sheep Chase," I will not ruin for you the circumstances that set this off). For the first few chapters, the protagonist is alone, walking the streets of Hokkaido, sitting in bars by himself and "contemplating the ashtray" (there must be tons of loners out there who can appreciate this) until eventually clues, both supernatural and other, take him to Tokyo and Hawaii, and introduce a slew of unforgettable, well written, deep characters. Such characters include Yuki, the troubled 13 year old psychic who is far superior to the undeveloped clone of May Kasahara in the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, the actor Gotanda, who can portray your life better than you can, the unforgettable detectives Bookish and Fisherman...the list goes on and on. What this book is, basically, is the fulfillment of the personal quest. It is a book that will be best appreciated by people who have been loners, stand removed from the "norms" of society of a wife, a 9 to 5 job in an impersonal office, two kids, a pet, and perhaps even a dedication to any particular religion, and have, as such, culivated a deep level of observation, a bit of an alienation to and from society, and perhaps a personal subconscious inkling/longing for a supernatural happenstance such as The Dolphin Hotel that make up for a lack of belief in any conventional religious notion accepted by the masses...

I read this book whilst travelling in Africa and I vividly remember me sitting late into the night under my mosquito net breathlessly chasing the protagonist ever further into his surrealist labyrinth. The unusual character of the setting - a European reading a book in Western Africa by a Japanese author - simply added to the powerful sense of disorientation. What sticks to my mind two years after reading this book is Murakami's uncanny ability to conjure up images of great physical power. His prose is suggestive to a degree that it literally spills over into the other senses: I cherish the memory of a number of strong aural, visual and tactile impulses related to various episodes in the book. The centrepiece, for me, is Lieutenant Mamiya's epic narrative of his war-time experiences in Manchuria and Mongolia: a dark metaphysical fable where beauty and death mingle in a deeply poignant way.
I have since read no other of Murakami's books. Glossing over some of their back covers I can't escape the impression that settings, moods and plots seem to vary only a little from book to book. I'd rather stick to the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, then. It'll give me re-reading pleasure for the years to come.

We chose this book for our Book Group knowing absolutely nothing about it. I admit I was a little daunted at the prospect of reading so large a book in the 3 weeks we had allocated for it. But I have never been more unaware of the pages flying by. Murakami's prose flows so easily you'd think it had been written in English (hats off to the translator). The writing isn't dense with convaluted ideas and traditional literary structures; his writing is woven with imagination and unique events. If you are a fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar and The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, you will love this book. Murakami combines reality with myth, the supernatural and surreal with the mundane and routine. He is able to create a world where a cat disappears for a year, only to come back and take a nap, and grown men have friendships with teenage girls and you don't think anything of it. I feel very strongly that this is one of the stongest pieces of imaginative fiction out there. If you enjoy strange happenings, dream-like realities, and finding out how an unemployed man spends his days at the bottom of a well, this is the book for you.

Warnings about water. Precise notation of time, the complete lack of it. Women who become one another at critical moments. Baseball bats and blue-black marks. Cats, birds, jellyfish, tigers and elephants (oh, my!). Young soldiers and little boys. Sex in dreams and real consequences. Love and dysfunction. War, gore, and fear. And more water. Confused yet?
I was, but I was also intensely interested. The various intertwining narratives split their time between the concrete and the nebulous, the ordinary and the supernatural. The result is a schitzophrenic reality with a smooth finish, that can be read and enjoyed simply as a wonderful story. I never felt that Murakami was trying too hard.
However, the layers of symbolism that make up the story are difficult to analyze and understand. Water is obviously a major unifying thread. Everything in the story is built around the "flow" of life, of events. This flow is marked by the behavior of the literal water in the story, from tap water to the ocean to a dry well. Mr. Honda tells Toru to follow the flow, and he obeys, even as it takes him to ever-stranger places. Another theme deals with identity. Lt. Mamiya and the Kano sisters are empty. Kumiko, May Kasahara, and Nutmeg's women have disturbing and nameless things lurking within. Toru must combat the evil that lives inside Noboru Wataya, and rescue both his beloved wife Kumiko and himself, armed only with a vague sense of unreality, a gateway well, and a baseball bat. In the end, he succeeds, though just barely. His victory is not total, but it does have a quiet kind of triumpth.
This book is not "about" any one thing. It is better understood through feeling than through thought, a characteristic that makes it difficult to describe; it must be experienced. When I finished it, I felt bewildered, yet serenely satisfied.

Haruki Murakami's "The Elephant Vanishes" does not reveal its coherence until the title story finishes the 327th page. This is a discussion about the shifting perspectives of man and woman in traditional society. Once the man loomed larger than women, but, like the elephant and his trainer, this notion has vanished from view. Murakami pauses to acknowledge and ponder.

Many of the male characters in this collections of 17 short stories are stay-at-home husbands married to career-oriented wives. Whether house-sitting, working around the house, or tempted by younger women, these men deal with their sexual urges and emotions without help from traditional norms. Other characters explore their awakening sexual urges, sometimes destructively, other times formatively. The female characters are strong, confident, and often unsupportive and seductively teasing.

This collection is also a more than a less book. The narrative voice is verbose and unchecked. This is a selfish narration, typically masculine, oblivious of utility or artfulness. But it is also honest. The stories are full of tidbits of erudition, excessive detail, and, sometimes, usefulness. It is more tape recorded psychology project than vision.

However, culturally, the collection is sterile. it is not informative about Japanese norms and developments. Murakami's characters are typically middle-class, urban, cosmopolitan, and ordinary. This is not a sourcebook, to learn about Japanese attitudes, but a document chronicling the leveling effects of globalization. In many ways, it is as disturbing in its sterility as it is in its conclusions.

I'm a big fan of Murakami's, but I love his short stories much better than his novels. it is the book you have to read to feel great to live on this planet with Murakami.some people say he is too American and his stories dont make any sense. why does a story have to make a sense? this life doesnt make any sense sometimes. I think his cute, little but deep and touching stories can touch your soul.They are strange, but beatiful. In some stories it is impossible to happen in your life time. but we can dream and imagine whatever we want. Call him a dreamer, and sentimentalist, but so are you.

This is a very solid collection of stories that 'fit' together very well. But for practical reasons, I'm just going to say a little bit about each rather then the book as a whole. The Wind Up Bird and Tuesday's Women- The reason I bought this book. It's obviously an early working of the first couple chapters of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. It's very interesting to read, to see murakami's plans for his epic start to bud. And like that novel, it is an excellent piece of writing. "The Second Bakery Attack"- Great story that furthur elaborates on Murakami's view of the Absurd, which, needless to say is, well, more ABSURD than the absurd of Camus. I read somewhere that Murakami is picking up where Camus left off. I think this is a great view. Murakami is Camus if he had lived in the Postmodern era. "The Kangaroo Communique"- Vintage Murakami weirdness, with a touch of creepy love. "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning"- My personal favorite story in the collection, if you can even call it that. It's a beautfifully written piece on melacholy lost love to the circumstances of the world that none of us can see or control. Reminiscent of Sputnik Sweetheat, Norwegian Wood, and South of the Border, West of the Sun. "Sleep"- The most disappointing story. Not because it's bad. On the contrary, it's one of the best in the book. But it is crying out to be a novel. Like the first story, it seems quite possible to able to carry it out for a few hundred pages. Unfortunetly it ends with a quick, unsatisfying ending. "The Fall of the Roman Empire...etc"- Interesting. I'll just leave it at that.... "Lederhosen"- Intriguing little story dealing with individualism to the very group minded Japanese. "Barn Burning"- The most mysterious story in the book, about a writer who meets someone who claims to burn barns. "The Little Green Monster"- My least favorite story in the collection. Not up to Murakami's normal greatness. Interesting, if not anything original, is all I can say about it. "Family Affair"- Another great, personal story by Murakami about the obligation to mature. "A Window"- Forgetable, but enjoyable when reading. "Tv People" Scathing story about the insidousness of Television. "A Slow Boat to China"- A very interesting story about Chinese in Japan. I think, though, that only people with some grounding in Japanese culture would appreciate it. "The Dancing Dwarf"- Most likely the most insane story in the history of mankind. "The Last Lawn of the Afternoon"- Another story about the difficulty of love and human connections. "The Silence"- A wonderful story wherein Murakami defends the Everyman and laments the over achiever. "The Elephant Vanishes"- Good, but not great. Also forgetable.

All in all, this collection shows the whole breadth of Murkami's writing abilites, and is not something to be missed by any of his fans.

Murakami's stories, like his novels, take place on an earthly plane just slightly askew from the one the rest of us inhabit. His view of the world is consistently unique and fresh. I think that's what makes his work so compelling to read. After The Quake is no different.

The six stories contained in this slim volume are thematically bound by 1995's Kobe earthquake. While there is a mention or two to the event in each story, these stories primarily deal with larger, more emotional issues. From beach bonfires to superhero frogs, Murakami never fails to dazzle. This collection is excellent.

This rather sober collection of six stories is thematically linked to the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake, although none is set in Kobe or directly deals with it. The earthquake seems to act more as a lurking idea that nothing is safe or certain in modern Japan. I've not read any other Murakami, but what's immediately striking is how detached all his characters are from any larger sense of community. Indeed, many of the protagonists fulfill stereotypes of the Japanese national character'non-confrontational, repressed, emotionally stunted, and to a certain extent solitary.

In the first story, a salesman is left by his wife because he is a shallow person. His response is to take a vacation, in which he discovers he's given away his soul. The second story is more or less a contrast between aimless youth and an older man, as they sit around a bonfire drinking. Then comes the life of a young man born to a religious nut, and his halfhearted attempt to track down his father. Next is the quasi-mystical tale of a middle-aged divorcée doctor seeking to restore herself and lose the bitterness that has built up within her. The fifth story is a wild, phantasmagorical episode where a mouse of a bank clerk is called upon by a superhero frog to journey beneath the earth to do prevent an evil worm from causing an earthquake that will destroy Tokyo. The most conventional story is the the last, in which a gentle, bookish man goes through life longing for his best friend's girl. Although all three were close in college, he was too shy to make his move, and lost her to his more charismatic friend. Given the rest of the stories, it's surprisingly sweet and it's placement at the end seems to hint at a belief by Murakami that sometimes (although, rarely) things work out in the end.

As a whole the writing is universally excellent'simple and elegant'however there's a certain detachment throughout them. They are moving, but very, very subtly so'and in that sense, the book is perhaps best read in bits and pieces, and twice to receive its full impact. Note: these stories were originally published in GQ, Granta, Harper's, The New Yorker, and Ploughshares.

For a long long time now, I'd been wanting to read
this new book by one of my Favorite writers and when I
did I was beyond elation...

Haruki Murakami is a genius. He is the master of
telling a story and is the best in his genre -
whatever that may be. The six stories in this gem of a
book revolve around people's lives before and after
the Earthquake that shook Kobe in 1995.

The Psychological shock and collective grief are
beautifully depicted through Murakami's words and
prose. An electronic salesman rethinks and knows
himself after his wife disappears one day - and he has
to deliver a package. A Giant frog visits a Bank
employee seeking help to save the World. A man builds
bonfires to live and relive his life over and over
again. Such stories and more are what make this book a
true genius.

I may be biased towards Murakami but he is the best!!
These stories in the true sense portray everything
that humans have to offer. From love to loneliness to
jeaulosy to tragic.

"Honey Pie" is probably my favorite piece of the
collection. "There's at least one good thing to tell
about even the most ordinary bear," Junpei tells the
little girl who is listening to his tale of the two
bears. This fairy tale and the main story are
interwoven in such a way that we become the little
child listening to the narrator as we read. Of all the
pieces, it is the one that, I think, most perfectly
captures the delicate balance in the relationship
between the self and the world. As the author writes,
it is "about people who dream and wait for the night
to end, who long for the light so they can hold the
ones they love."

A great great read!!

Uhm. Yea. I can honestly say this is the most original novel I have ever read. The hunt for the evil sheep with a star on its back...No one but Murakami would think of something quite this insane. Which isn't to say to book is bad. It's manic and rarely makes sense, yes, but it *works*.

This is my second Murakami book, the first being Wind-up Bird, which I loved. Compared to Wind-up Bird, though, A Wild Sheep Chase comes off more like a short story than an independant novel. It is not any where near as spawling or epic as Wind-up, nor is the plot as deep, or the characters as rich. But inpsite of this, I still really liked A Wild Sheep Chase. No, there were not any profound themes, and my view of the world has not really changed. But man, was that one enjoyable read... Great, but shallow, story. Great, but hardly dynamic, character. And, most importantly, GREAT writing. Man I love Murakami...

Haruki Murakami is my favorite author. I'd read all of his books published in my country. I loved Norwegian Wood but the most I love is A Wild Sheep Chase. If you had read 'Pinball 1973' where he described a confused youth, you can easily meet again these young people in A Wild Sheep Chase. His idea about metaphoric character is just fascinating and after finishing this book, the sorrow and loneliness will overwhelme you as if you lose your youth and existance.I've never experienced this feeling.

The genius of Murakami's "Wild Sheep Chase" (like the genius of his other works) is the total believability of his characters and plot. Everyone who reads this work is immediately engrossed and sucked in, and only realizes how truly bizarre the whole thing is when they try to tell someone else about the book.

The narrator of "Sheep Chase" begins as something of an Everyman. His mate leaves him, his job pays him well but isn't very satisfying, he is intelligent but little in his life seems to stimulate him to thought. You wouldn't say he is going through life with blinders on, but nor is his life totally examined, either. Life is, more or less, something that is just happening to him. You could probably think of a dozen people you know who would easily fit his character.

Still, this is a Murakami novel, after all, and pretty soon he is, in the words of Tolkein, simply swept away, a stranger in a strange land with no idea of how he got there. A perfectly ordinary photo that he uses in a brochure catches the attention of a powerful political figure, "The Boss", who has been inexplicably lying on the verge of death for some years, hanging on as if by some supernatural power. The photo, it's discovered, has a special sheep in it. A type of sheep who's breed does not exist. A minion of The Boss makes him an offer he cannot refuse: find that sheep...

He meets up with a young woman who, among other things, is a call girl for an exclusive members-only club, and does ear modeling on the side. Together, they set off to find this elusive sheep-that-doesn't-exist, all the while trailing the narrator's old friend, The Rat, who seems to always be one step ahead of them.

Much has been written about Murakami and "Wild Sheep Chase", including that this work is a shining example of the postmodern novel. While this may be the case, potential readers shouldn't shy away from this book simply because they may not know a fig about postmodernism. Unlike other "postmodern novels", which are often thickets of high rhetoric and voluminous nonsense, "Wild Sheep Chase" can be read on a multitude of levels: both as lit crit and as pure, enjoyable fiction. To read it strictly as one or the other is to do a great injustice to this work.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the most fantastically written, intriguing, meaningful, exciting, page-turner of a book that I have read in my eighteen years on this planet. It combines two stories (which are, in fact, one), both so intriguing that I couldn't put the book down. (Neither could my mother or older brother.) Murakami's prose is incredibly vivid and action-packed, like a well-filmed movie or a fantastic dream. This may sound artificial, but his writing, in content and style, completely sucked me in and immediately had me hooked and craving more. The characters are fascinating, from the brilliant, American pop-culture-oriented protagonist who also happens to be an extremely "hard-boiled," split-brained, logical thinker, to the young woman who smells of watermelon and whose specialty is a cucumber sandwich. This story has something for everyone. It has futuristic theories on the power of computers; mysterious men who smash pr! ivate property, make threats, and disappear; unicorns; spirituality; creepy underground scenes with creatures reminiscent of Gremlins or Golum; and discussion of American and Japanese popular cultures. There's something for the mystery-lover, the sci-fi- and fantasy-lover, the romantic, the thrill-seeker, and the anthropologist in everyone. More than that, it offers beauty and hope. I recommend it to all.

I purchased this book on a whim - the descriptions sounded interesting enough to merit a look.

Boy was I stunned by it. One of the best books I've read in a long time and probably one of the best novels I've read that's been written in the last 20 years.

Beautifully written (and translated) it spoke to many different sides of me. The novel brilliantly fuses a number of different cultural genres (science fiction, mystery, film noir, fantasy, magical realism, "cyberpunk") into a mix that, amazingly, works very well. Try to imagine a collaborative effort by Garcia-Marquez, William Gibson, and Walker Percy and you almost might be able to envision what this book feels like to read. Who else but a Japanese author could make such an intriguing pop culture cocktail?

Besides being a genre-bender, the premise of the book and the questions that it raises concerning the relationship between humanity and technology, the soul and the mind, and the individual and society are quite thought provoking.

Did I mention that the book is very funny at times too?

This is unlike any other book you'll ever read. Definitely worth checking out IMHO.

This was the seventh Haruki Murakami novel I've read. I was worried about this book. Although I have read and enjoyed other books by Murakami, I held this one off with a stick because I was frightened by the word Cyberpunk. I'm not a science fiction fan. The only other book that I have read that had a Cyberpunk theme was William Gibson's Neuromancer, which was so full of technological jargon that I had no idea what I was reading. I was worried this book was going to be the same, but I lucked out, the protagonist of the story really doesn't understand much of hat is happening to him or of the abilities that have been planted in his brain, so I found the book quite easy to read. The main character of the book is a nameless 35 year old man who works for the System, basically dealing in information, He meets quite colorful characters along the way: A genius Scientist, a pink loving young lady who wants to get him into the sack, and a slim pretty libraian who has a bottomless pit for a stomach. The main fascination that this book hold, however, is the parallel world that is inside the protagonist's mind a world of his own creation world that is his own prison. Read this book!

First off, I'm one of Murakami's biggest fans and every since Hard Boiled Wonderland have been a devotee. By now it should be obvious that this non-fiction is totally unlike anything he's written so far. It's not a fanciful novel (a la Wind up Bird Chronicle) nor a riveting short story collection (Elephant Vanishes), but rather a penetrating look at the modern Japanese psyche. As fans of Murakami know, he exiled himself from Japan for several years while he lived in Europe and the U.S. This wider perspective makes his insights into Japanese society even more interesting.

I admit that I was just starting to get tired of reading the first half of the book which consists of first person retellings of their encounter with the deadly gas Sarin. But, there IS a point to all this -- it has the overall effect of an "everyman" trauma, almost Joycean in scope that can't be captured from a mere report or media take. Then, Murakami turns to his own thoughts and his interviews of Aum followers which is particularly interesting. In the end, I found this fascinating, but I do prefer his novels. Still, I applaud him for taking a risk and venturing outside his usual narrative space. Viva Murakami!

i was for some reason browsing the japanese history section of my local bookstore last week when i picked this book up. i sat down with it and read a bit. i ended up coming back to that bookstore some five or six times in the next week, each time reading a bit more. so i read this book without buying it, probably because, in my four years in college, i've become conditioned only to buy a non-fiction book if i have to. however, if i weren't conditioned against doing so, i would have bought murakami haruki's underground.

the actual anecdotes of the various businessmen and students murakami details are chilling. i, a writer myself, can't put it any other way. at first, i marveled at these stories (like the one where the guy says he asked his wife for a divorce just before going to work), thinking, "what eloquent people murakami has found amidst the 'ordinary' japanese population!" only after reading twenty or so of these interviews did i realize it: every person, not just the those who survived the tokyo gas attack, has a story to tell. most people just don't have the ability to flatten that story out into eloquent words; murakami proves, in this book, that, if nothing else, he is talented as an interviewer, talented at asking questions that will elicit eloquent responses. that makes me respect him even more as a writer than i did before, which is a good thing.

a bad thing, though, is that the stories in the first part tend to get a little bit tedious. murakami is making his point, about how japanese people shun "weirdness" without admitting that they too may be susceptible to it, and he is making that point over and over again. that's not to say each and every anecdote wasn't thoroughly interesting, however.

murakami's small autobiographical essay following part one, which might seem misplaced if one simply looks at the table of contents, comes as a great revelation. he explains how he was back in japan after living abroad for so long, staying a hundred miles south of tokyo on the day of the sarin attack. he explains how he wasn't even watching television or listening to the radio; he was tidying up some bookshelves and listening to some records. murakami goes on to explain his sabbatical from japan, all the things he left behind, and how he wrote about japan when he was away from japan.

underground, to me, as a writer, is another writer's desire to find a REASON to return to his roots. murakami explains how he was just thinking, that quiet day of the gas attack, of how he wanted to return to japan for the purpose of writing a not-so-distanced book about japan. how strange that the gas attack, the soon-to-be subject for his next book, was happening in those very moments.

murakami, in his essay, talks a lot about the wind-up bird chronicle and hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world, and with good reason. murakami, in staying so far from japan for so long, was left with nothing other than the past memories of japan to inspire his writing, and so his books, especially wind-up bird chronicle (with its somewhat heavy exposition on the japanese doings in manchuria), rely on japan's past, not just murakami's past. it's a bit confusing, i know. still, this feeling hit me as i finished reading murakami's interlude. this book was his reason for writing about japan in the present, his reason for going back to his home.

what he and his interview subjects detail in this book is quite revelatory, as far as japanese psychology is concerned; i won't bother going into detail. for me, the highlight of the book is murakami's reason for writing it. sometimes, we feel like we have to get away from something -- in murakami's case, it was the insane popularity of norwegian wood -- and when we do, well, we have to come back eventually, don't we? it strikes me as more than just ironic that japan, a country whose glorious culture is mostly borrowed, would produce a people who would produce a writer who would produce such a book. the big question is: when did the japanese people leave "japan" behind? when are they coming back? and, even then, where are they going to go? it took murakami until his middle forties to ask such big and critical questions in book form, and it's only natural that his book, not even on a subconscious level, doesn't answer them.

i subtract a star because it can grow (slightly) tedious. still, i can forgive that, because it made me think.

and i LOVE the cover art!

The Tokyo subway sarin gas attack of 1995 is an event that continues to baffle and anger the Japanese. However, as Murakami points out in his book, it is also something the Japanese would prefer to condemn and move on from rather than analyze and try to understand. Murakami's approach is to interview survivors of the attack, relatives of those that have died, and members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult that, while not involved with the gas attack, were members of Aum at the time the attack occurred.

The first two-thirds of the book are dedicated to the survivors and relative interviews. While touching, shocking and surprising, after the first dozen or two, they begin to take on a numbing quality. So many of the stories share so many themes ("I had to get to work...", "I'm not so much angry as confused", etc.) that, in retrospect, they run together. In fact, the two things about the attack that stand out most in my mind are that (a) while some of the survivors and family members are incredibly angry over the situation, most are not so much angry as confused and hurt, and (b) while almost everyone agrees that the situation was handled incredibly poorly by the emergency services and lives were lost as a result, no one wants to sue. They merely wish to get on with their lives.

Where the book really shines, though, is in the Aum interviews. Murakami profiles members of the cult who came from different backgrounds, had different aims in joining Aum and saw different sides of it as members. In this section, we begin to see the breakdown of the "salaryman phenomenon" in Japan at a personal level. People who joined were mostly intelligent, if highly misguided, and wanted more from their lives than office work could give them. Between the two groups, Murakami begins to show a Japan wtih serious social issues straining below the surface of an otherwise quiet and conformist society.

Admittedly, this sort of classification may be a little premature for Japan, but it does indicate the Japan faces the same problems today that many others (like the US) face. I recommend this book not just for those interested in the gas attack and the people were that committed it, but also for the political scientists and the social anthropologists wanting a look at the problems and difficulties facing Japan as a country. While, as Murakami himself says, he is primarily a novelist and this is his first real attempt at nonfiction, I hope he revisits this format in the future when looking at other modern problems in Japan.

Haruki Murakami is one of those author's who, if you read one of his books, you're hooked and have to read them all. If you're a fan, this book will not disappoint. The narrating character is similar to the man in most of his books. There's nothing extraordinary about him, yet that's exactly why you love the guy and are happy to be let into his life for a little while. This book reminded me a bit of my favorite Murakami book, Hard-Boiled Wonderland. It's the idea of another possible world out there that makes things interesting. The love story wasn't as gripping as say, the one in South of the Border, West of the Sun. I hate calling attention to the love triangle in this story, as most reviews do, but I suppose it is unavoidable. Our narrator must deal with his unrequited love for a unique woman who reminds me of one of the author Banana Yoshimoto's characters. She, in turn, must deal with her unrequited love for the older woman she works with.

The most striking thing to me about this book, was that Murakami actually made me, a woman, understand what it's like for a man to feel love and lust for a woman. I understood all of the narrator's thoughts and feelings. I guess that's what's great about Murakami's books. If you love Murakami, then read this one too. It will be like hanging out with an old friend.

To some extent, all Murakami's books are tightly structured along a philosophical theme (i.e. life and death in Norwegian Wood, conscious and subconscious in Hard-boiled Wonderland, and despair and action in Dance Dance Dance), but in Sputnik Sweetheart he goes into a territory less universal - sign and symbol, idea and spirit, and presence and absence. I used to see Murakami as a philosophical novelist, but now I feel like I'm reading a novel written by a philosopher.

The storyline is only a cover for Murakami to unfold his reflections on these themes - Sumire was swept by her love for an otherworldly woman; meanwhile, the earthier "I"(is he yet again nameless?) quietly awaits her love. It's his discussion on the contradictory forces behind these characters that makes Sputnik Sweetheart an intriguing read: Sumire was named after a Mozart's song with the most beautiful music and the most callous lyrics; Miu is a foreigner who can no longer speak her mother tongue; "I" is a passionate, kind, intelligent teacher, who nonetheless sleeps with the mother of one of his pupils. All of them feel the force of destiny, and each answers in one's own way: Sumire disappears after her quest for heavenly beauty; Miu is no longer a living person, but a memorial to the person she was, just like the statue of her father. "I" remains in this world, resists, and hangs on to a thread of hope that nobody else would call hope. All three are aware that they need some fresh blood - the spirit - to revitalize their being - the white bones.

Murakami's approach is even more abstract and conceptual here than before, and it enables him to hit some sublime emotional notes, for example, the horrid scene when Miu watchs her own rape, and the final scene when "I" waits for Sumire to call back. The pain was so pure and transcendental - Murakami definitely spills some blood over the white bones here!

The prose is absolutely stunning: it flows like a piece of music, with tones and colors and subtle emotions, even a bit serene sloppiness. Hat off to the translators.

"Sputnik Sweetheart" was my first Murakami book, and I am fascinated. There will be more Murakami in my future.

The book reads like the few moments of unreality before settling into sleep. Like something from the comic book "The Sandman," this is a story of dreams, moons, love and cats.

With the title "Sputnik Sweetheart," I was expecting some sort of hard-metal story, where love shatters on technology or maybe something about the fast pace of modern life in Japan. I certainly wasn't expecting this gentle, silent love short story, told to the sound of Brahms and with the flavor of French wines.

Of course, the style of writing and the ideas are the forefront of the novel, with the actual plot taking a supporting role. The characters are wholly unrealized, mere glimpses of caricatures. They love, they live and they do so poetically. They have ideas, and those ideas are worked out in the medium of the written word. Minimalist seems to be thrown around, and maybe that is so, but I don't see it. The words flow, and hold together well. The plot is fleeting, an altogether unresolved, the the half-memory of a dream that made sense at the time, but seems strange in the re-telling.

An excellent book, one best read right before bedtime.