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Sputnik Sweetheart

by Haruki Murakami

3.77 · rating details · 15,040 ratings · 984 reviews

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 classmat...more

Paperback, 229 pages

Published October 3rd 2002 by Vintage (first published January 1st 2001)

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Community Reviews

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Jul 27, 2007

Kate rated it

Recommends it for: people who hate western narrative

Shelves: slipstream

Note: This review made a lot of people angry, because apparently I'm thinking of another book or something - what I remember is evidently not what happened. But it is totally what I remember, and I had fun writing it, so if you bother reading it, please consider it a joke. I'm not going to reread the book or take down the review. It's a one-off for me, a non-serious review. If you are still pissed off by it despite this disclaimer, I can only ask that you don't pick a fight with me. And ignore y...more

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Jan 29, 2011

Kwesi 章英狮 rated it

Shelves: borrowed, haruki-murakami, 2011

When I asked my friend if she had tried to read Murakami's works, and she said no and she let me borrowed her one and only copy and it was given to her by her couple friend. And I was in doubt accepting her offer, because (1) It was given to her as a birthday gift and she didn't read it yet, fresh in the box; (2) some of my friends in Goodreads always talks about Murakami and his works so I decided to look for a free copy and lastly, (3) my insecurity works when I saw the cover, look, a nude wom...more

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Mar 16, 2009

Seth Hahne rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone who enjoys Murakami's special brand of genius.

After the excellent Kafka on the Shore and the perhaps much better Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, I've been on something of a Murakami kick. I find his storytelling fascinating, both in device and in style. His use of the extraordinary-as-mundane is a tasty joy for me to indulge. Sputnik Sweetheart, while not as wonderful an experience as the two aforementioned works, was quite a bit of quick fun.

Thematically not dissimilar from Wind-up Bird, this short novel revels in questions of identity...more

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Mar 14, 2010

K.D. rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Ranee

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Shelves: 1001-non-core

This is my 2nd novel by Haruki Murakami and just like Kafka in the Shore, this still amazed me. I even enjoyed this more than Kafka.

For me this is the best unrequited tragic love story I've read so far. As this is said to be the most openly emotional novel of Mr. Murakami, the prose is really haunting and the scenes are dreamy and surreal. Again, because Mr. Murakami uses a lot of metaphors and symbolisms, there can be layers of interpretations. I am not really fond of love stories (...moreThis is my 2nd novel by Haruki Murakami and just like Kafka in the Shore, this still amazed me. I even enjoyed this more than Kafka.

For me this is the best unrequited tragic love story I've read so far. As this is said to be the most openly emotional novel of Mr. Murakami, the prose is really haunting and the scenes are dreamy and surreal. Again, because Mr. Murakami uses a lot of metaphors and symbolisms, there can be layers of interpretations. I am not really fond of love stories (this just happens to be part of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die), but I choose to see this novel as a story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited loves.

The narrator, a 25-year old teacher, K is in love with a 22-year old lesbian writer, Sumire. However, Sumire is in love with her boss, a 39-year old married businesswoman, Miu. Miu and Sumire, working as the former's personal secretaty, went on vacation in Greece as a side trip from a business trip in Italy. Sumire told Miu her feelings. Because of her past, Miu could not reciprocate Sumire's love. The latter disappeared "like a smoke."

There are many nice heartfelt quotes but the one below is my favorite as this explains the title. Based on history, Sputnik 1 & 2 were the first man-made satellites launched by USSR in 1957. In Sputnik 2, there was a dog Laika that becaume the first living being to leave the earth's atmosphere, but the satellites were never recovered.

With Sumire writing and referring to her and Miu:

"And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing."

The novel is easy to read and it took me less than a day to finish all the 210 pages. Especially towards the end, I had to stop several times as the writing is so good that I had to close my eyes and think of my own lost or unrequited loves I had in the past.

My unsuspecting wife thought that my knee was hurting. (less)

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Dec 23, 2010

Sarah rated it

Shelves: completedreading

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
I just read Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami and Anansi Boys by Gaiman back to back. I'm a big fan of both authors. I've read all of Gaiman's work going back to the much celebrated Sandman comic books and I've been tearing through Murakami's as I get my hands on them. I'm struck by how similar they are, and yet the quality of the literature is strikingly different. Gaiman's novels, in particular the best of them, American Gods, weaves between realism and fantasy to make ordinary events and my...more
I just read Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami and Anansi Boys by Gaiman back to back. I'm a big fan of both authors. I've read all of Gaiman's work going back to the much celebrated Sandman comic books and I've been tearing through Murakami's as I get my hands on them. I'm struck by how similar they are, and yet the quality of the literature is strikingly different. Gaiman's novels, in particular the best of them, American Gods, weaves between realism and fantasy to make ordinary events and myth come together. Generally there are appealing everyman main characters who are drawn into a magical world where they help prevent some sort of disaster. It's a little formulaic, and the best parts are the descriptions of the mythical characters in reality. One of my favorite characters from Sandman is an ancient Egyptian god who goes into the travel business when people no longer worship him. He's spectacularly successful. That's a fun kind of combination of myth and reality where your own travel agent might just be a deposed god making the best of eternity.

Murakami similarily works in between our world and some magical world, though Gaiman's "real world" seems much more solid reality than Murakami's and Gaiman's fantastical world is also more solid, but not necessarily more vivid. Murakami's main characters are often, or at least of the three of his books I've read, Everymen, who to varying degrees become entwined in a magical world. In Sputnik Sweetheart the Everyman narrator observes the after effects of someone else's crossing into a magical world. In Wind-Up Bird Chronicle the Everyman main character crosses himself, as he does in Kafka By the Shore.

Murakami is working with Big Themes, you know those things they do in serious literature. Some of his themes, as I've been able to figure them out are:
1) The West (Europe/U.S.) is a different reality for the Japanese than Japan.
2) Past wrong-doings haunt the future. (Think WWII and its impact which is a recurring motif, and completely fascinating for the stories in of themselves.)
3) What we perceive is only a tiny part of what is out there or how we interact with things.
4) The ultimate evil is believing in nothing.

I particularly like his use of the last one. He makes really unappealing, seemingly innocuous characters horribly evil in barely explicable, inhumane ways. In WUBC the horrible evil is so innocuous a favorite cat is named after it. In KBTS the banal, "my dad the jerk" turns out to be true so much more so than we could ever have complained of in our own teenage days, and is more so than the teenage main character ever realizes (eats the souls of cats for his flute?!)

Gaiman's stories stick to your bones. You can ruminate over his writing later and find more depth to it, but Anansi Boys is the weakest of his pickings. American Gods is substantially better, but I go back and re-read The Sandman books every now and then, and I don't ever expect to pick up either American Gods nor Anansi Boys yet again.

The biggest weakness of Gaiman's latest is highlighted by Murakami's strength: the narrative flow to describe things so that the words vanish and pictures appear. Murakami can describe whistling opera while making spaghetti so that you forget that you're not actually sitting in the kitchen watching it done. And then add to that the depth of the themes, the importance and the opacity of them, and you have a much more engaging work than Gaiman's latest.

Clearly they are authors of two different camps. Gaiman's a comic book writer who dabbles in fantasy fiction, while Murakami is a "serious novelist." I don't see the two has being worlds apart (haha - get it!) and I think Gaiman could easily improve his writing if he spent a little more time making the descriptions descriptive.(less)

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May 09, 2007

Kelly Franklin Robinson rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, surrealism-and-magical-realism, japanese

Why does Haruki Murakami hit the spot so well for me, and for thousands of other readers worldwide? There's a common element in all his works; it's a bridge of fantasy and reality that has just the right delicate balance. There's something about that balance that's so mesmerizing. You can connect with it on a level that you can’t in pure fantasy, and there’s enough of a disconnect from solid reality to leave you in wonder. Of all the other writers that have been categorized as magical realism th...more

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Apr 10, 2010

Ranee rated it

Shelves: my-murakami

...to be inlove. Like a sweeping feel and eruptions of clear desire. Like a force too great it changes you without breaking you; It engorges you then melt you yet it calms you back to lesser tones, relaxing.
Mr. Murakami captured 3 common themes revolving around love- the "first love"; the unrequited love; and the repressed love. When you thought you have thoroughly predicted that this is certainly a love triangle, you find deeper depths that makes you realize (or so i hope you r...more

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Nov 09, 2009

Dasha H rated it

Recommends it for: Murakami virgins

Shelves: 2009

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is, by any chance, a bad book. My low rating can be easily explained by the fact that I've already read too much Murakami.

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. A simple guy who likes to 1.cook 2.listen to music/read books 3. think about the meaning of life meets an ordinary girl who turns out to be totally extraordinary, which gets her into trouble

...more

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Jul 08, 2007

Mae rated it

what really made me grab this book from the bookshelf in the first place? was it because of the name 'Murakami'? or was it because of the woman seductively beckoning me to caress the cover and explore its inner pages? or... was it the endearment sweetheart or the word 'sputnik'?!

sputnik! that did it for me. i used to tease friends for being too 'sputnik' - like a satellite going round and round with lots of energy. i would especially tease someone who had an electrifying crush on so...more

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Apr 20, 2011

Ernest Junius rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: The ones who haven't read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Shelves: books-that-took-overnight-to-finish, cool-books, owned, relaxing-reads, tragedy, world-adventures

So far, I have probably read half of all Murakami's work. I mean I like them all. Even the worst ones, I still like it. How can I hate one of my favourite authors?

After I read Sputnik Sweetheart I couldn't help thinking that this is a second rate version of my favourite The Wind-Up Chronicle. Sputnik Sweetheart obviously has Murakami's trademark soaking its every nook and cranny: missing people, letters, magical realism, surrealism, dreams, greece, and so on. I finished it in two days,...moreSo far, I have probably read half of all Murakami's work. I mean I like them all. Even the worst ones, I still like it. How can I hate one of my favourite authors?

After I read Sputnik Sweetheart I couldn't help thinking that this is a second rate version of my favourite The Wind-Up Chronicle. Sputnik Sweetheart obviously has Murakami's trademark soaking its every nook and cranny: missing people, letters, magical realism, surrealism, dreams, greece, and so on. I finished it in two days, it is a very light read, and actually when you have read other Murakami's work, things would just get easier. That's the most obvious problem I see in Murakami's work. All of the work, tends to be similar. Not just similar in style, but also story wise and character wise. Now I felt like Murakami has only several characters in his head that's playing many different plays again and again (his novels). Even though on his latest novel, After Dark Murakami actually wrote in a very different style from his previous—which means, (I think) that he realised this particular matter and therefore tried to puff a breath of fresh air to his writing. But that's not the matter here.

Back to Sputnik Sweetheart, I decided that I don't like it very much. Aside from it is being a second rate version of The Wind-Up Chronicle, Sputnik Sweetheart is 200 pages long. But it reads like a 20 pages long short story. It feels damn fast. It is rich in details, painstakingly rich in emotional exactness, but I just don't see how those actually contributes to the whole story, so I think it was more like wasted efforts. they feel clumsy, not so much as effective as his other works. And in addition to the things I said, they take up too much space, they reduce the length of the story greatly.

Another discussion point: Sputnik Sweetheart speaks from a first person view that actually tells another person as the main protagonist of the story. A very interesting style similar to The Great Gatsby. However I found it very weird that in some parts of the story, the point of view would change from the narrator's point of view to the first person view of the person that the narrator was currently talking about—also with ultra vividness of details, which felt awkward too. I mean how can you, as the person who tells a story of another person, actually able to illustrate very vividly the feeling of a person that that another person was talking to when that person didn't actually able to see to the inside of that person she was talking to? Is that writer's license? I don't know. It just feels so weird. Here's the case where great detail becomes a hitting-back boomerang.

Aside from that, Murakami managed to create a very interesting story, curious metaphor, but admirable nevertheless—especially the Ferris Wheel story. But still, if you really want to read this, I suggest that you don't read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle first, or else the second-rate syndrome will appear mercilessly.

After all, not everything in this world can be beautiful, right?
(less)

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Jul 01, 2010

Zee rated it

Shelves: 1001challenge, booksread2010, contemporary, japanese

'Sputnik Sweeheart' is a novel that works its way quietly through the mind, awakening the senses and forcing you to look at the world through a different window. Like many of Murakami's characters, we are introduced to a set of young adults, who have somehow made it through the first stages of their life, but seem to be lost as to where they go from there.

Sumire, a young college drop-out with dreams of being a Japanese Kerouac meets Miu, a woman twice her age who she slowly begins ...more'Sputnik Sweeheart' is a novel that works its way quietly through the mind, awakening the senses and forcing you to look at the world through a different window. Like many of Murakami's characters, we are introduced to a set of young adults, who have somehow made it through the first stages of their life, but seem to be lost as to where they go from there.

Sumire, a young college drop-out with dreams of being a Japanese Kerouac meets Miu, a woman twice her age who she slowly begins to fall in love with. Confused by her reaction to Miu, Sumire turns to K, her college friend who harbours his own secret love for Sumire. Identifying Sumire as a young woman with no definable goal in life, Miu takes her under her wing and intriduces her into the world of enterprise. Under K's watchful gaze, Sumire begins to blossom into a different, more confident woman. This transformation however gives rise to other more serious problems, until one day Sumire mysteriously disappears and in her wake, strange truthes begin to disturb the surface of everyone's past.

Murakami's chosen leitmotifs, symbols, and stories often seem totally disassociated, but in this novel they manage to fall like tetris-pieces into a beautiful pattern that is both disturbing and beautiful at the same time.

In this novel, the loss of ones soul, the ridding of the pubescent self and the haphazard journey into 'becoming' an adult is portrayed as lonely and full of painful sacrifices. We may have friends to keep us company along the way, but what purpose do they really serve? The title 'Sputnik Sweetheart' is well-chosen, as the haunting story of Laika (the poor dog who was sacrificed for scientific progression) returns again and again to hammer home how humans often sacrifice their closest life companions in order to understand more about the mystery of themselves.

After reading four Murakami books, I see that his writing stands out from the rest of his peers for its controlled simplicity. The man has a story to tell, and his job is to tell it as clearly as possible. When a person has a story, they don't waste time embellishing the background. And so it is that everything he writes stands out fresh and bold and strong. I find that this is an advantage, as he never tires his readers, but leaves them with a set of impressions that linger long after the story is finished.

I give this 4/5 stars. (less)

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Mar 02, 2011

Nikki Mendoza rated it

· review of another edition

Norwegian Wood made Murakami a cult figure in Japan, but I prefer Sputnik Sweetheart, I understood, related and feel for the characters more. Why they thought, acted and loved the way that they did. I didn’t want to read another Murakami so close to my birthday, scared of the possibility that I’d get depressed again after the romantically morbid Norwegian Wood. But this was a nice surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half but started getting worried when it started to get a little too mystic...more

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Aug 19, 2009

Henry added it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-novel

"And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the nex...more

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Feb 20, 2009

Jonathan rated it

Shelves: 2009, novels

Haruki Murakami seems content sticking to writing from raw dreamstuff. I recently read the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, and while that is epic and expansive and this book is quiet and small, his building blocks are the same: characters are impossibly quirky, most scenes are surrealistic and involve the misplaced or the random, and the plot is impossible to predict (I think because Murakami doesn't care to do a proper job editing the pages he admits he writes as he goes along). The plot this time is ...moreHaruki Murakami seems content sticking to writing from raw dreamstuff. I recently read the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, and while that is epic and expansive and this book is quiet and small, his building blocks are the same: characters are impossibly quirky, most scenes are surrealistic and involve the misplaced or the random, and the plot is impossible to predict (I think because Murakami doesn't care to do a proper job editing the pages he admits he writes as he goes along). The plot this time is the following: A love triangle between a school teacher, his lesbian writer friend, and her beloved, a married previously straight now asexual woman. The plot then becomes a disappearance mystery when one of the characters becomes displaced in some sort of mirror world.

When reviewing Wind-Up Bird Chronicles I defended the "strange incomprehensible female" problem in the novel as perhaps Toru's perception of women, influenced by his aloof and then untrustworthy wife. After reading Sputnik Sweetheart, unfortunately my view is now that all women in Murakami's world are otherworldly, alien creatures send to befuddle. This time we get to view a befuddling lesbian writer (who is actually fairly relatable in her passion for literature and love, although is extremely frustrating to the male narrator) and a women who is essentially split into two halves, one a sexless and fading drone and one who never appears but apparently exists in some mirror world, carnal and vivacious. The one (nameless) women (a mother of one of the narrator's school children) who is not strange and mysterious cheats on her husband with the narrator and is characterless.

The early sections of the novel on writing and on losing oneself when in a new relationship are clear and demonstrated with vivid and interesting metaphors, but the novel suffers as themes are piled on and old ones are forgotten. 200 odd pages and a vague and small plot do not provide the architecture for the numerous themes Murakami packs this book with.

I feel guilty bashing Murakami because he is a good (I wanted to say risky but he is such an established name now that nothing he does can ever really be a risk) writer and he does many things I like. I like hallucinatory scenes and images, but the odd dreams in the novel aren't vivid enough to stand alone and they relate in such a haphazard fashion to the 'real' that they often signify nothing (I understand that this is the allure to some fans). I like novels with a huge number of themes tackled at once, even in a concise fashion, but I think that this novel doesn't illustrate a whole lot clearly at all in it's limited space. I even like strange baffling women (Ingeborg in 2666 by Roberto Bolaño comes to mind) but I can't stand that that is Murakami's default female archetype. But alas, the elements of Sputnik Sweetheart came together in a way that just didn't sit all that well with me. It was entertaining, but I'd just read Wind-Up Bird as it has a better overall plot and much more compelling side stories, though almost all of the faults listed above.(less)

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Feb 12, 2008

Danger Kallisti rated it

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: po-mo-craziness, must-read, dyke-stuff

A story of wistful beauty, love, and longing. A strange “through the looking glass” tale, told from a unique perspective. Not only was this a beautiful piece of writing, but it was full of things I love – lesbians, unrequited love, Beatniks, magic... Also, it didn't read at all like a translation, which really impressed me. Now I'll have to read everything else I can find by this writer.

<font size="-1">“And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling com...more

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Nov 17, 2007

Beau rated it

· review of another edition

I'd like to re-read this in a year or two. I think I would enjoy it more if I had been able to read it all in a single day, or perhaps even extending into a second day. Due to a hectic schedule, I was unable to read for a week and I was no longer in the mood the book was trying to convey.

And it's a very mood driven book. There's a haunting, elegiac atmosphere permeating everything. Murakami's mysteries usually feel like a Lynchian nightmare, unspooling in every direction at once, whi...more

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Jan 31, 2008

William rated it

· review of another edition

I was looking for new authors and came across a lot of strong opinions on Murakami, good and bad, on Goodreads. I thought I'd give him a shot. But i absolutely hated it. What I don't know is if its a bad translation, or if its Murakami's style itself, but I felt it was just horribly written. His similes and metaphors were amateurish and misfit; Her resolve was a regular Rock of Gibraltar. His descriptions seem forced; ...to help prop up her uncertain life here on this third planet from the sun.A...more

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Feb 09, 2011

Zeruhur rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: giapponese, narrativa

Haruki Murakami è stato per me una rivelazione d'estate. Ho osservato affascinato per mesi la bellissima copertina dell'edizione Einaudi di "Norwegian Wood", fino a che non ho più resistito alla tentazione di possederlo. Come molte rivelazioni, quella di Murakami è stata subitanea e inattesa: uno dei rari casi in cui ho comprato un libro praticamente a scatola chiusa.
Non potevo certamente immaginare che "Norwegian Wood" fosse il più atipico e saldamente radicato nella realtà ...moreHaruki Murakami è stato per me una rivelazione d'estate. Ho osservato affascinato per mesi la bellissima copertina dell'edizione Einaudi di "Norwegian Wood", fino a che non ho più resistito alla tentazione di possederlo. Come molte rivelazioni, quella di Murakami è stata subitanea e inattesa: uno dei rari casi in cui ho comprato un libro praticamente a scatola chiusa.
Non potevo certamente immaginare che "Norwegian Wood" fosse il più atipico e saldamente radicato nella realtà dei romanzi dell'autore giapponese. Fatto che è risultato lapalissiano nella impegnativa lettura del mastodontico "L'uccello che girava le viti del mondo".
"La ragazza dello sputnik" è arrivato subito dopo, nel pieno di un'urgenza 'murakamiana'. Questa volta il dubbio c'è stato ed è durato lunghi minuti. Di fronte a me la scelta tra questo libro e "Dance dance dance". Alla fine l'impasse è stato superato dal confronto degli incipit:
"Nella primavera del suo ventiduesimo anno, Sumire si innamorò per la primavolta nella vita. Fu un amore travolgente come un tornado che avanza su una grande pianura.[...] In quel periodo Sumire stava lottando con tutte le sue forze per diventare una scrittrice di professione."
Ecco la frase magica. Non all'inizio immediato, sulla prima pagina, E' la chiave per capire davvero il romanzo, aldilà dell'atipica storia d'amore a triangolo e del fuorviante titolo (il cui senso è richiamato in quarta copertina). Il senso del libro ruota attorno allo scrivere e sulla capacità di 'viaggiare' altrove. E' sintomatico che la protagonista/scrittrice abbia bisogna di una voce esterna, il narratore. Del suo scrivere infatti deve ammettere:
"Ho la testa piena di cose che vorrei scrivere. E' come un assurdo magazzino tutto stipato di roba. [...] Immagini, scene, frammenti di discorsi, figure di persone... a volte queste cose sono così scintillanti, piene di vita, e sento che mi urlano: Scrivici! In quei momenti mi sembra che stia per nascere un romanzo meraviglioso. [...] Forse mi manca qualcosa. Qualcosa di assolutamente essenziale per diventare scrittore."
E' così che Sumire filtra nell'altrove, scomparendo. E resta al narratore, colui che la ama, il compito di raccontare la sua storia, di indagare sulla sua scomparsa e attendere il suo ritorno dal viaggio mistico e onirico.
E' un testo più complesso di quanto non posso apparire a una lettura superficiale, pur essendo agile e scorrevole. Le descrizioni dell'urbanità di Tokyo sono dense ed evocative, come sono oniriche le scene ambientate in Grecia (non a caso la terra dei miti per eccellenza) e meravigliosi gli scritti di Sumire.
Meta-romanzo, racconto fantastico surreale e iperreale allo stesso tempo, "La ragazza dello sputnik" è uno dei libri più belli che abbia letto.(less)

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Feb 08, 2009

Yofish rated it

I really liked the language/prose in this book. It flowed very nicely (which probably is partly thanks to the translator). The story is told from the point of view from a young, male elementary school teacher in Japan. It's largely about a woman he knew in college, remained friends with, and has a huge crush on. She falls in love for the first time with a middle-aged woman. I wasn't thrilled with some of the plot---there's some mysticism about being in two places at the same time which mayb...more

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Jan 13, 2012

ميّ أحمد rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: روايات

الرواية الرابعة التي أقرؤها لموراكامي بعد الغابة النيرويجية والحدود وكافكا على الشاطىء
وعلى الرغم من الإنتقادات الكثيرة التي سمعتها عن هذا الكاتب لكني مازلت أحب القراءة له
ويخيل لي أن من هذه الرواية كان الإنطلاقة لكتابة رواية كافكا على الشاطىء حيث لا تخلو من غرائبية وخاصة في فصولها الأخيرة والتي استحوذت على اهتمامي بشكل خاص
من هنا فيما يبدو ظهرت القطط وخاصة القط الأسود لا شك أن من قرأ كافكا يتذكره جيدا !
موراكامي كاتب يستخدم الجنس والتفاصيل الفجة لم يختلف الأمر في سبوتنيك...moreالرواية الرابعة التي أقرؤها لموراكامي بعد الغابة النيرويجية والحدود وكافكا على الشاطىء
وعلى الرغم من الإنتقادات الكثيرة التي سمعتها عن هذا الكاتب لكني مازلت أحب القراءة له
ويخيل لي أن من هذه الرواية كان الإنطلاقة لكتابة رواية كافكا على الشاطىء حيث لا تخلو من غرائبية وخاصة في فصولها الأخيرة والتي استحوذت على اهتمامي بشكل خاص
من هنا فيما يبدو ظهرت القطط وخاصة القط الأسود لا شك أن من قرأ كافكا يتذكره جيدا !
موراكامي كاتب يستخدم الجنس والتفاصيل الفجة لم يختلف الأمر في سبوتنيك
مازال يطعم بها رواياته لعله حريص على جذب القارىء الغربي ولعل لديه مشكلة ما
لكني أجزم أن هذه التفاصيل لم تكن لتؤثر فيما لو خلت منها الرواية

ما سرقني بحق هو مسألة انشطار الذات وكيف ممكن أن يعيش شخصان في جسد واحد لا يعرف أحدهما الآخر ولكنه يتفاجأ بوجوده هذه الثيمة هي التي لعب عليها موراكامي في الرواية ومن خلالها أنطلق ليغوص في مناطق معتمة في النفس البشرية مناطق هلامية غير واضحة !
يروي الكاتب قصة فتاة مثلية على الرغم من تذمرها لعدم انجذابها للرجال
لم تعرف أنها كذلك إلا بعد أن قابلت ميو الفتاة المنشطرة
تروى القصة على لسان رجل بعيد أعني أنه يعطيك شعور بأنه منبوذ حتى وهو يسرد الأحداث وهو جزء منها لكن يبدو كأنه ليس بالداخل إنشطار آخر ربما !

ليست هذه الرواية فقط هناك الكثير من الأحلام وأنت على أرض الواقع لكنك لاتدري في أي منطقة أنت كان هناك الكثير من الأمور التي اختلطت في الرواية الأماني تتحول لأحلام ولكن الأحلام لا تتحول لواقع ولكنها قد تتبخر كالدخان !
وهكذا أحداث غير متوقعة في كثير من المشاهد أنت تنتظر شيء لكنه لا يأتي وأن جاء
يبدو مختلفا !
سبوتنيك رواية جميلة لولا ماذكرت عن تلك الأمور الجنسية التي يقحمها موراكامي ويغرق فيها بشكل مزعج
أما مسألة الفن والموسيقى وحب الروايات الذي يتلبس شخوصه فالأمر لا يختلف عن الغابة النرويجية وفيما وراء الحدود وأعزو ذلك الأمر لأن موراكامي نفسه كان لديه عشق لقراءة الروايات ولديه نادي للجاز وهذه الأمور يبدو أنها انعكست على أبطاله

أحب أسلوب موراكامي بساطته شفافيته وهو يصف أبطاله على الرغم من أنهم متشابهون فالأنثى تربط شعرها وتلبس تنورة قصيرة والرجل دائما ببدلة رياضية

أما بالنسبة للمترجم فهو ليس بالمترجم البارع يمكن القول أنه لا بأس به فقط (less)

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Dec 22, 2011

Juanito Becario rated it

"Sputnik, mi amor" es el primer libro de Murakami que leo. Según he leído en internet, no es el mejor libro para empezar debido al final tan abierto que presenta y pues tienen algo de razón: Murakami construye toda la historia, todos los hechos, paso a paso y sin prisa. Al final todo se diluye.

Sin embargo, eso no es precisamente malo. El libro podría tomarse como una historia de amor, pero esa sería una lectura bastante descuidada. Hay amor, es cierto, un amor "violento ...more

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Dec 07, 2011

Andrew rated it

In Sputnik Sweetheart, Murakami has woven yet another incredibly beautiful tapestry – one which dips in and out of layers of the real and the metaphysical with poetic subtlety. One notable point is how vivid the whole thing felt. Like one of those dreams where you wake feeling as though your dream life was more real than your real one. In retrospect, this aura that the novel emits is extremely relevant to the heart of the story. As someone who has dwelled on the idea of dreams and the metaphy...more

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Nov 20, 2011

Kirstie rated it

· review of another edition

I read this for the first time before 1Q84 was released and found it very easily going to the top of the list for favorite Murakami novels. The theme of other selves is very prominent as is other worlds but this is, to my knowledge, the only time Murakami has really explored the erotic love of one woman for another. His books tend to focus on heterosexuals so I found this very interesting.

This is a shorter novel and the ending is somewhat open and enigmatic....I also really love the...more

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Oct 08, 2011

Lana Drown rated it

· review of another edition

Ya sé que sorprende que le dé 2/5 a Murakami. Sé que es un grandísimo escritor, no hay más que leer el primer párrafo del libro para saberlo, pero este libro concretamente (es el primero que leo de él) me ha resultado decepcionante. He considerado justo olvidarme de quién lo ha escrito, no dejarme influir por sus grandes críticas, y centrarme en la novela. A mí me dan este libro diciéndome que el autor es Pepe Rodríguez y ésta es la nota que le pongo, porque una novela no es buena sólo porque es...moreYa sé que sorprende que le dé 2/5 a Murakami. Sé que es un grandísimo escritor, no hay más que leer el primer párrafo del libro para saberlo, pero este libro concretamente (es el primero que leo de él) me ha resultado decepcionante. He considerado justo olvidarme de quién lo ha escrito, no dejarme influir por sus grandes críticas, y centrarme en la novela. A mí me dan este libro diciéndome que el autor es Pepe Rodríguez y ésta es la nota que le pongo, porque una novela no es buena sólo porque esté escrita de forma magistral.

La primera parte transcurre lentamente, sin mucha acción, sólo nos presenta a los personajes y la relación entre ellos. Diría que la trama llega a ser anodina, pero se compensa con la forma virtuosa de escribir del autor. En la segunda mitad del libro sucede algo, y es a partir de aquí cuando el libro empieza a decepcionarme drásticamente. Me encanta la fantasía, pero en esta ocasión, cuando aparece lo onírico, me resulta totalmente chocante, absurdo, como un pegote mal puesto, algo inverosímil en medio de esa trama tan realista. No me lo creí. Y no sólo eso, que al fin y al cabo, es puntual, sino que me parece que el argumento deja de ser coherente, pierde consistencia y empiezan a relatarse cosas ajenas al suceso principal; hechos que, en mi opinión, ni vienen a cuento ni aportan nada, sólo sirven de relleno. El final del libro queda bastante abierto, sin que al lector se le dé una explicación sobre lo que ha pasado, defraudadoramente fácil. Y sé que éste puede ser un final maravilloso para muchos lectores, por eso no digo que este libro sea malo o sea bueno, no me meto en eso, porque podría ser ambas cosas. Yo, que sólo comparto mi opinión como lectora (o ciberlectora, para usar el término con el que nos han definido), y que una vez más, siento tan ajena a la mía la opinión de los críticos literarios, sólo puedo decir que este libro no me ha gustado.

Aún así, pienso darle otra oportunidad a Murakami con "Tokio Blues", porque me ha gustado como escritor, aunque no me haya gustado esta historia en concreto. Quizás, sabiendo a lo que me enfrento (según he leído es elemento común en sus obras mezclar de forma repentina lo real y lo irreal), el impacto sea menos drástico.(less)

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Aug 05, 2011

Jonny Metro rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-public-library

This novel starts off simply enough, as we are introduced into a love triangle in which everybody goes unfulfilled. K, our narrator, is an elementary school teacher who is in love with Sumire, a beatnik chick who can't ever love K because she's a lesbian. Sumire, in turn, is in love with Miu, an older businesswoman who can't ever love Sumire because she's a broken woman, incapable of even FEELING love. But when Sumire begins working for Miu, and starts to slowly drop out of K's life, things tak...more

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Jul 11, 2011

Sơn Phước rated it

· review of another edition

Phải đến khi đọc xong một mạch Người tình Sputnik, tôi mới có thể nói rằng Haruki Murakami chính là tác giả ưa thích của tôi, rằng tôi say mê các cuốn sách của ông, rằng tôi thực sự bị ám ảnh bởi các nhân vật của ông, rằng tôi đắm chìm trong những giấc mơ hoang đường mà ông tạo ra, rằng rằng rằng ...

Thật lạ vì đây lại là một câu chuyện về đồng tính nữ. Nhưng Haruki Murakami đã chứng tỏ với độc giả rằng, tôi viết về phụ nữ cũng chẳng kém cạnh khi viết về đàn ông, thậm chí là còn giàu xú...more

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May 15, 2011

Elizabeth added it

Shelves: chocolate-club

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

This book really did call to mind The Great Gatsby for me, although I didn’t feel it was anywhere near as good. I suspect it suffers from being a translation. I suspect that in Japanese it is a lyrical and haunting read. In English it’s kind of… well, just flat, really. And it needs the language to keep it going because NOTHING ever happens -- the big moment, when the heroine disappears, happen...more

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Apr 03, 2011

Katie Parker rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

This is the second book of Murakami’s that I’ve read (both this year), and much like when I finished Kafka on the Shore, I don’t really know what just happened. The book is about a 22-year-old Japanese girl, Sumire, an aspiring novelist who unexpectedly falls in love with an older woman, Miu. She is flighty and spontaneous, writing constantly, but never actually finishing any of her ambitious novels. Her story is told by her friend, “K,” an elementary school teacher she met in college, who is in...moreThis is the second book of Murakami’s that I’ve read (both this year), and much like when I finished Kafka on the Shore, I don’t really know what just happened. The book is about a 22-year-old Japanese girl, Sumire, an aspiring novelist who unexpectedly falls in love with an older woman, Miu. She is flighty and spontaneous, writing constantly, but never actually finishing any of her ambitious novels. Her story is told by her friend, “K,” an elementary school teacher she met in college, who is in love with her, but understands that she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. They maintain a very close friendship, however, and he helps her make sense of the million thoughts in her head. Soon after meeting Miu, Sumire begins to work for her, eventually traveling with her to Europe on an extended work trip. But while in Greece, Sumire vanishes without a trace, and “K” is called upon to help with the search. Yes, that sounds simple enough, but the rest of the book twists into a somewhat supernatural and open-ended journey for all three characters, often reiterating the theme of loneliness:

“Ever since that day, Sumire’s private name for Miu was Sputnik Sweetheart. Sumire loved the sound of it. It made her think of Laika, the dog. The man-made satellite streaking soundlessly across the blackness of outer space. The dark, lustrous eyes of the dog gazing out the tiny window. In the infinite loneliness of space, what could the dog possibly be looking at?”

“And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they’re nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we’d be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.”

“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?”

I didn’t love this book as much as I did Kafka on the Shore, but I love Murakami’s style and descriptions (I feel like I highlighted the crap out of this book). He is one of the more unique authors I’ve read, and though I can’t always make sense of what he’s getting at, I can certainly respect his ambition. I really hope more of his books are released in Kindle editions soon!(less)

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Mar 01, 2011

Benji rated it

Shelves: 2010, 24-hours-read, carpe-diem, read-in-morocco

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Now that I sit to write the review, I realize there's an Italian movie very similar to part of the plot here. Michelangelo Antonioni has a film on a small island where the person disappears, and the whole movie they look for her, but eventually give up and go home. About 20 minutes in, they've nearly forgotten her already. So this has a strong relevance to this book that I didn't see before, but this book is about more than that, just like the movie is.

Likewise, I didn't realize I'd ...more

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Feb 11, 2011

Valerie rated it

I discovered Murakami last year when I was talking to one of those guys who signs you up for petitions for Amnesty International, Green Peace etc. etc. and he was seeing if I wanted to have a job like that. When I sort of said I was interested (I was stuck at my shitty job at Boost Juice), we started talking about other things while I waited for my bus to uni. I told him that I was doing a Bachelor of Arts at UQ with studying in Literature and Japanese. He asked me if if I had read Murakami, sin...more

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About Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described by the Virginia Quarterly Review as "easily accessible, yet profoundly complex." Critics suggest his work draws from film noir and contains elements of magical realism.

Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music ...more

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“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?” — 790 people liked it

“I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.” — 693 people liked it

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