Product Description

Lost in space or a loser in love?Twenty-two year-old Sumire is in love for the first time - with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is a glamorous and successful older woman with a taste for classical music and fine wine, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Jack Kerouac novel. Surprised that she might, after all, be a lesbian, Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K. about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire and should she ever tell Miu how she feels about her?K., a primary school teacher, is used to answering questions, but what he most wants to say to Sumire is, "I love you." He consoles himself by having an affair with the mother of one of his pupils. But when a desperate Miu calls him out of the blue from a sunny Greek island and asks for his help, he soon discovers that all is not as it seems and something very strange has happened!
to Sumire.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1626 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Haruki Murakami is arguably one of Japan's finest, modern writers and is, increasingly, being seen as one of the top authors working today. The last novel of his to find its way to these shores, Norwegian Wood, was a delightful, if slightly one-dimensional coming-of-age tale. The pyrotechnics of his previous, more surreal novels (Wind Up Bird Chronicle and A Wild Sheep Chase) had disappeared but something of his eccentricity, what made his books such a wonder, had disappeared too. Sputnik Sweetheart is a confident continuation of this more simple style yet one that retains the allegories, the depth of his best work.

The narrator, a teacher, is in love with the beguiling, odd Sumire. As his best friend, she is not adverse to phoning at three or four in the morning to ask a pointless question or share a strange thought. Sumire, though, is in love with a beautiful, older woman, Miu, who does not, can not, return her affections. Longing for Sumire, K (that is all we are told by way of a name) finds some comfort in a purely sexual relationship with the mother of one of his pupils. But the consolation is slight. K is unhappy. Miu and Sumire, now working together, take a business trip to a Greek Island. Something happens, he is not told what, and so K travels to Greece to see what help he can offer.

Themes of love, loss, sexuality, identity and selfhood are all interrogated, woven into a compelling, romantic, serious and sometimes sad book. It is a disarmingly simple, hugely satisfying, intelligent and moving work and one of Murakami's best. Simplicity, sprinkled with a dose of his magic, has enabled Murakami to write candidly, succinctly and beautifully about the complications and difficulties of love and loving. --Mark Thwaite

Jenny Turner, Evening Standard
"Sputnik Sweetheart is a captivating book from one of the world's most interesting authors. Reality will never look so solid again"

Julie Myerson, Guardian
"...he surely accomplishes the best, most unnerving job of fiction: to force you to look hard at the parts of yourself you never even suspected were there"

Customer Reviews

Good Murakami, though not among his best
This good novel by Japan's Haruki Murakami has essentially three characters: the narrator, a teacher in his late twenties (a Murakami alter ego, one supposes); the object of his affections, Sumire, an erratic writer in her early twenties; and the object of Sumire's affections: Miu, a married businesswoman in her late thirties with a secret past, that takes Sumire as an assistant and as the companion in an eventful trip to a Greek island. The novel finishes with too many loose ends (at least, I did not understand them), but for most of the times the mixture of existentialism and minimalism, along with Murakami's good grip as a narrator makes one interest hold. Not among the author's best, but still a good novel about the loneliness and despair of modern urban life.

Is love really impossible?
`Sputnik Sweetheart' starts simply enough with the narrator telling us all about Sumire, an aspiring writer who wears a second hand herringbone coat and chain smokes. Sumire falls in love with Mui, a woman who is seventeen years her senior and who offers her a job. Sumire becomes unrecognisable to the narrator, K, as she is gripped by her feelings. Sumire follows Mui to a Greek Island and it is whilst they are there that K receives a phone call asking him to come to Sumire's aid...

Although there was nothing to particularly dislike about this novel, there wasn't anything I found particularly engaging either. I didn't believe that Sumire would fall in love with Mui and the relationships seemed a bit flimsy. There are about ten amazing pages somewhere near the middle that deal with Mui's past but it wasn't enough to carry the whole novel. The overall message seems a little depressing too; K loves Sumire but she doesn't love him, Sumire loves Mui but she doesn't love her and Mui seems incapable of love. Is love really that impossible?

Not one for me.

Disjointed
Murakami's description does not falter, but I found this book more disjointed than 'Norwegian Wood' or 'South of the Border, West of the Sun'. It is gripping and beautiful and well worth a read, but make 'Norwegian Wood' your first if you've never before read Murakami.