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: #18806 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

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.

Rain Check
Having been increasingly disappointed by Murakami's more recent works (especially After Dark, a Murakami by numbers exercise and the reviews of the German translation of his 'Marathon' book aren't too promising either) I turned to one of the few early novels I hadn't read so far. Was the prequel 'A Wild Sheep Chase' extraordinary in subject matter, style and drama I am somewhat left deflated by 'Dance Dance Dance'. In contrast to other reviewers I believe it to be necessary to have read Sheep Chase to at least get some 'meaning' out of Dance. I have long since given up on a point in Murakami's books but this one comes across lost and warbling.
However, and this is what the 3 stars are for, it is, like all his books, a page turner. This will seem a contradiction to what was just said, and I really do not know how he does it, but his style is so smooth and likable that even when one ends up thinking 'so what for crying out loud?' one still wants to finish the book.
If you have never read Murakami, try Sheep Chase first, then the outstanding Hard- Boiled Wonderland, then Wind-up Bird. In my opinion that's all you ever have to read by this author, but those books will stay with you for a very long and happy time.

Joy, joy, joy
I'd have to agree with a reviewer below - you fall in love with Murakami's writing as soon as you read it. Kafka was my first read too, and I think it's safe to say I'm going to buy the lot and try my very best to read them as slowly as possible...I'm not even sure there's a way to praise his writing. Just read it.