Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami Search Amazon for other books by or about Haruki Murakami. Rating: Reviewed by: John Walsh

A young woman, a would-be writer, drifts about suburban Japan, unable to complete her work satisfactorily and running out of time before she must admit her writing career will have to give way to a less rewarding career. Her problem is that she writes too much, based on her experiences, minutely observed but unable to set them in a context that makes artistic or conceptual sense. This inability to make sense is replicated by the telephone calls she makes in the middle of the night to the young teacher (the principal narrator) who suffers from unrequited love for the woman, named Sumire. The text then shifts in tone when Sumire falls in love with an older woman, Miu, who begins to treat her as a protégé. Miu is incapable of human affection or intimate relationships and the seeds of tragedy grow to fruition on a Greek island that is very remote from Tokyo, especially as the book is set (and indeed written) prior to the internet and mobile phone-led globalisation that has done so much to make the experience of being anywhere so much like the experience of being anywhere else.

Haruki Murakami is one of Japan's most well-known contemporary novelists and many readers will be familiar with his work from one book or another. In this novel, his style is sparse and his tone rather melancholic. The title is drawn from a misunderstanding between Sumire and Miu, when the latter mistakes "Sputnik" for "Beatnik." The Sputnik symbol becomes one which is emblematic and represents an inability to connect between people. After all, the original Sputnik offers the illusion of communication but in reality is a machine that seals off the individual from the rest of the universe and from which only death provides a possible exit--the animals transported to orbit were never intended to walk upon the earth thereafter. The principal characters face the same problems of being within an environment yet alienated from it and unable to communicate or relate on a human level with other people. This is most clearly seen in the quite shocking revelation of what happened to Miu and why she is the way she is--as mediated by Sumire's retelling.

Murakami is an excellent writer and, even if this is not considered one of his most important works, it is still a richly rewarding read and a compelling fable of modern life. It is the kind of tale that has become irrevocably associated with modern Japan--I think it was William Gibson who observed that Japan today is what we used to think the future would be like and so was commonly presented as such in futuristic works. It chimes well with the notion of the Japanese society in which people are alienated from society, from work and from each other, as in this fable. Highly recommended.