Let me preface this review with how I stumbled upon this
book. Murakami, of course, is one of my favorite authors of all time, so seeing
his name anywhere gives me intrigue. It was the end of my first year of
college, and in the dorm common area were a few donation bins, where students
could offload everything they didn’t want to bring home, from 100% merino wool
sweaters to foam mattress pads to underwear (all things I found while scavenging
the bins) to be donated to some vague charity. I saw the used Murakami book, subtly visible from the heaps like a piece of dull seaglass in mounds of
sand. And inside, there was a note:
Santi,
Hope you had a wonderful winter vacation and 21st
birthday.
This book is one of my favorite. I bought this in the
airport in Tokyo and couldn’t resist temptation so I read it again (which is
why there are a few pages with folded edge. I’m sorry).
I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. This is my
birthday gift to you and I still couldn’t believe I [illegible word] up your
birthday…
Sue J
It breaks my heart to see a book powered with such
sentimental value in the unwanted items bin. It’s cool how every book has a
story behind the story, isn’t it?
If you’re familiar with
Murakami, then this book should be of no surprise to you. Supernatural occurrences,
unrequited love, solitude, and an overload of metaphors. It should leave you
frustrated with its lingering mysteries and a seemingly non-sequitur ending. I’ll
try not to spoil much, but one of the most confusing concepts of this story is
how the setting splits in two: the world and its alternate dimension, referred
to as “the other side.” Yet, the entire story physically takes place in this
world, but the characters travel to the other side, or lose half of themselves
in it. The other side is not heaven, hell, or where alter egos thrive. It’s simply
an entire part of oneself, in the case of the character Miu, the youthful,
silky black hair and smooth skinned part of herself that transcends one reality
to inhabit another, leaving her on earth with pale white hair, senility, and
defeat. Sumire, a woman in love with both halves of Miu, vanishes from this
earth in pursuit of her own and Miu’s other sides. She goes in hopes that the
other Miu will love her, a love that the Miu of the world is incapable of
giving or receiving. Miu is her Sputnik Sweetheart; Sputnik meaning the Russian satellite from the Cold War taking place as the setting, but also Sputnik meaning the Russian word for fellow traveler. They travel the world together but despite being platonic companions, each day with her Sputnik Sweetheart only makes Sumire fall further into the deepening crevasses of love.
Meanwhile,
the main character who is only referred to as K, is hopelessly in love with
Sumire. He dotes on her, thinking of her while he sleeps with other women,
waiting for her to call at three in the morning, traveling to Greece to find
her when she disappears for weeks wearing only slippers and silk pajamas. We do
not know how the characters’ lives play out beyond these few weeks of lost and
found identities, but there is a tacit acceptance of the futility of K’s
pursuit of Sumire when we hear of how deep her infatuation is for Miu. It’s the
most unconventional love story, where the love triangle travels through
dimensions and increases its complexity. But in the end it is not really a love
story, but rather a story about longing, about a loss of self, about sputniks,
traveling companions and loves, orbiting earth together but only coming into
contact, sharing the exact same gravitational pull of the earth, for a split
second in the infinity of time.
Rating: 4
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