Product Description

'If Raymond Chandler had lived long enough to see Blade Runner, he might have written something like Dance Dance Dance' Observer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3167 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-07
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Synopsis
High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance. It is an assault on the sense, part murder mystery, part metaphysical speculation; a fable for our times as catchy as a rock song blasting from the window of a sports car.

About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo.

Customer Reviews

Masterful and Magical
A magical journey blending the fantastic and the realistic with more than a hint of film-noir. The mysterious rebirth of the Dolphin Hotel arouses the curiosity of the narrator and brings him to investigate. The simple start soon leads us into a world populated by rich and colourful characters and then the murders start.
Murukami's writing mines a rich vein of black humour and shows a contempt for the restrictons imposed by generic forms. His brilliant use of descriptive visual detail means he gives his characters a strong physical reality which is then distorted through surreal events and happenings. He writes about the development of relationships, teenage angst and death with a warmth and tenderness making this magical fable addictive and compelling.

Dance Dance Dance - Murakami
An unorthadox sequel to a wild sheep chase, dance dance dance is in my opinion one of Murakami's less life changing books. Its still a rip roaring read at times, but lacks some of the magic that we have been spoiled with in books like norwegian wood and of course, wind up bird.

As has been noted by other reviewers, its not essential that you have read wild sheep before reading this, but the appearance of familiar faces and places throughout the book do add an extra sprinkle of unexpected smiles.

I found the pace varying throughout, with some, traditionally dreamy sections that would take hours to absorb, with other faster paced parts that would keep me up turning the pages long past bed time. The unexpected and frankly bizzare twists and turns are no less than we should expect from Murakami, and the exotic and far flung locations thrown up in this book are a welcome change from the pedestrian places the author's wild adventures occasionally unfold.

Dance Dance Dance is one i would recommend for Murakami fans immediatley, but if you are new to this most amazing of writers, try Norwegian Wood, Kafka On The Shore or Wind Up Bird and fall in love with him first.

The best summation of Murakami's talents?
`Dance Dance Dance' is probably the ideal place for any Murakami novice to start as it is a compelling summation of the author's singular moods and preoccupations. It combines some of the themes of grief, loss and memory of novels like `Norweigan Wood', but less oppressively so, and the surreal metaphysical mysteries of `The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'. The blurb quotes a reviewer from the Observer claiming similarities to Raymond Chandler and Blade Runner but this seems to be lazy journalistic shorthand. In reality, Murakami might be better described as a mish-mash of David Lynch's metaphysical detective stories (particularly Twin Peaks, which this pre-dates slightly) and Bret Easton Ellis' numbing vision of contemporary pop and consumer culture. Moreover, there is something unmistakably Murakami about his writing that makes him a singular reading experience. This is a sad, funny and at times frightening novel, not to mention a real page-turner. Recommended.