What you see is a series of surreal images barely held together by threads of reason. I have come to realise that reading a Murakami book is not quite an act of reading itself but an act of dreaming with your eyes open. 'Reality was one step out of line, a cardigan with the buttons done up wrong.' But after Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, etc., Sputnik Sweetheart just falls naturally into the plain old 'more-of-the-same' category and never moves me like I expected. So, if Sputnik Sweetheart was the first Murakami book I'd ever read I'd most definitely be head over heels for it right now. Doesn't it all sound familiar to you, experienced Murakami-readers? The ending is usually bleak and confusing. The guy tries to save her from something, predictably dark, but fails.

think about the meaning of life meets an ordinary girl who turns out to be totally extraordinary, which gets her into trouble soon after the guy falls for her. A simple guy who likes to 1.cook 2.listen to music/read books 3. I used to like him quite a lot, but come on, doesn't he get tired of writing the same book over and over again? Let me show you the pattern. My low rating can be easily explained by the fact that I've already read too much Murakami. Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells' song, although it is widely thought it was titled after the Beach Boys tune), Norwegian Wood (after The Beatles' song) and South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part being the title of a song by Nat King Cole).ĭon't get me wrong, I don't think this is, by any chance, a bad book. Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences.

Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'. Murakami Haruki (Japanese: 村上春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami