Sputnik Sweetheart
- or The (soulless) Travel Companion -
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
(not a page turner)
Murakami writes the same book over and over and it seems he cannot move away from his favorite subjects: loneliness, sex and the netherworld . I can say this by having only read three of his books: '1Q84', 'Kafka On The Shore' and 'Sputnik Sweetheart'. I like the other two immensely so I was understandably disappointed by the time I reached the middle point of 'Sputnik' and I realized this one wasn't going anywhere.
Fortunately Sputnik is a quick read (only 200 odd pages) and it didn't take me too long to rush to the end. Did I enjoy it? Sometimes I did. I think Murakami's terse first person prose inspires me to write too, probably because it sets the stage for my own rambling. But in this case I had the clear impression that Murakami included some of his own notes and rambling, sometimes with the excuse that the main protagonist was reading through the private diary of his best friend. I mean, off course Sputnik is child of Murakami's mind, but unedited bits of odd prose dressed up as diary entry aren't very entertaining to read and the main protagonist's own rambling about loneliness don't necessarily make a book automatically interesting.
So let me explain briefly what happens in this book.
Sumire is an aspiring novelist but her inspiration is somewhat lacking until she falls in love with an older lady who runs a wine import business called Miu. After this chance meeting, Sumire's will to write disappears completely. Meanwhile Sumire's best friend, the narrator, a dude simply called 'K', secretly lusts over Sumire. The book's premise is promising, the set is typically Murakami's and I was ready to enjoy it like I've already
done, twice, until ...
### Spoiler Alert Begins ### ... until Sumire disappears on a small Greek island while on a trip with Miu. The supernatural and mysterious is a normal recurrence in Murakami so I was kind of expecting something like this to happen. You know? If you have read 'Kafka on the shore' you know perfectly well what the gate stone does, right? And '1Q84'? Just look at the moon and you'll understand. But the main difference here is that the parallel universe is not explained, not even in a metaphysical or poetic sort of way. Its just something that’s there, and it is a given and "why do you even want to know?", seems to be Murakami's answer. Well, I do want to know, exactly like in '1Q84'. I want to be taken there on a discovery journey, escapism to the power of n! Here it seems that Murakami either didn't want to spend any more time rewriting and adding to this rather short novel, or simply thought that it's bare bone plot was enough. I wonder if the whole episode with the child shoplifting was supposed to be filler. I personally enjoyed the diversion from the Greek island plot, as I thought that that wasn't going anywhere, but I still had 20% of the book to go and in my heart I was hoping Murakami was going to redeem this somewhat empty book with a brilliant last minute connection between the two plot lines ... but nothing really came of that either. ### Spoiler Alert Ends ###
Let's be honest, Murakami is no Virginia Woolf. His prose is at best simple, gifting occasional strokes of genius and vivid descriptions, but that is not enough in my own opinion. Reading this novel I've learnt that 'sputnik' in Russian means 'travel companion' and as the famous satellite, this 'travel companion' of a novel is a soulless lump of metal orbiting around my bedside table, waiting to fall back to earth and burn into oblivion. What else do you expect when half of your characters are described as 'empty shells' or 'lifeless' for no apparent reason or because they had en encounter with an unexplained 'something'.
Sputnik was not a page turner but if you had never read anything by Murakami, you will probably enjoy this more than I did ... but then again, why start from 'Sputnik Sweetheart' when 'Kafka On The Shore' is right there, waiting to be read?
Yours truly,
Gabriele
