A review by artemistics
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

murakami is somebody i have tried twice before: i loathed norwegian wood after it completely went off the rails from its interesting premise, and felt partial to after dark, a definitely more moody and aimless (complimentary) read. both did give me the ick, though, especially whatever the fuck happens in norwegian wood. when i opened sputnik sweetheart and was quickly informed about the fact that the main character, sumire—also known as the woman our narrator, k, is in love with, as he also quickly informs us—is a lesbian, i was immediately terrified of what was to come, since i became conscious of the fact that the ick was pretty much imminent. it was a delightful surprise to find that the ick never came, and i can finally say, yes, i liked a murakami novel. i dare even say i kind of loved this one? with a very simple premise, murakami manages to talk about love, unrequited love, queer themes, friendship, doppelgängers, trauma, creativity, deep loneliness, having to conform to fit into society and parallel ghost worlds. sumire is probably manic pixie dream girl adjacent, but her pain (and the pain of sumire's own manic pixie dream girl, miu), her uncertainties and her frustrations feel real and true. i loved the ambiguity of the story, the small mysteries of this world, the fantastical elements introduced that we don't question, because they can't be really explained, so we embrace uncertainty. the conversations on writing were very interesting, as was the way the relationship between trauma and a metaphysical splitting of the self was treated. beautiful and magical and sad and eerie in all the perfect ways.

i felt it very easy to submerge myself into the story and i really enjoyed the prose a lot more than in the other two murakami books i've read (both translated by jay rubin), so i also find it imperative to compliment the lovely work of philip gabriel here as translator. i certainly don't speak japanese fluently enough to even be able to dip my toes into the differences and accuracies of rubin's and gabriel's work as translators to english, but, in my experience, sputnik sweetheart does flow much more easily and casually in english than the other two books, while mainting the murakami-isms i've picked up in prior readings. so happy to have given this a try.