Book Review - Sputnik Sweetheart

Murakami is a weirdo. He's illogical, irrational, incongruous, discortant, sometimes perverted. Simply said, have no preconceptions when reading Murakami. And don't ask why, because there usually is no answer. Murakami spends his time talking of the ordinary. Mundane, everyday activities such as eating, listening to music, reading a book. However, he's such a virtuoso at conveying those everyday feelings that readers feel connected and intrigued.

I read Murakami because I like the ordinary. And I like to be transported to another world which makes absolutely no sense. I've even stopped asking why. It's an escape from the real world where every statement needs to be backed up by evidence, every behaviour explained, every trip planned, every decision justified.

Sumire is an ordinary girl who dreams of being a novelist. She has chosen to leave the tracks that life had pre-planned, spending days writing and writing while depending on part-time jobs and her parents to keep afloat.

K is an uninspired school teacher who spends his days lulling about, reading books at home and occasionally having affairs with parents of his pupils. Miu is a Korean-Japanese who's married, a successful business-women with cultured tastes for fine wine.

Between them, a series of events begin to unfold. K realises he's in love with Sumire, Sumire falls deeply in love with Miu, and Miu hires Sumire as her personal assistant. Sumire and Miu abruptly set off on a trip to Europe and when K finally receives a call, he finds out that Sumire has vanished. When K heads to Greece to find Sumire, he finds that Miu has a similar story 14 years ago where she was split into two and part of her vanished, the only evidence was it left her with pure white hair.

At first, it was hard to accept that Sumire could simply vanish without a trace for no reason. Perhaps what Murakami was trying to convey is that people vanish at various stages of their lives, either physically and/or spiritually. Is there a difference between the two at all? For some people as they change, they are always throwing away the past and re-making themseves. I guess to some of my high-school friends, I've already vanished and even if they meet me again, the spirit that they knew is no longer there. To them, does it make a difference whether I physically existed or not? In any event my spirit has changed.

But maybe what Murakami shows is that while vanishing can lead to the creation of a "new" you, you lose part of yourself and those close relationships that you held dear to your heart. In the end, does Sumire come back to see K? You'll have to read it and make up your own mind.