The Art of Language in Sputnik Sweetheart

The author of the Japanese book ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ is Haruki Murakami. The book was originally published in 1999 in Japanese language and then published in the English language in 2001. Murakami is the author of other books: ‘Hear the Wind Sing’, ‘A Wild Sheep Case’, ‘Norwegian Wood’, and ‘Kafka on the Shore’. Murakami’s works contain some common themes such as surrealism, fantasy, loneliness, and fatalism and he appears to be influenced in his work by western writers like Raymond Chandler, and Kurt Vonnegut. Generally, Murukami writes in the first person narrative and the same is seen in Sputnik Sweetheart as well.

The story of ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ revolves is narrated in the first person narrative by ‘K’, whose story revolves around Sumire, an aspiring writer and an older Korean woman, Miu. Sumire is also the woman K is in love with. K is 25 years old and teaches at an elementary school. Sumire does not reciprocate his feelings, rather she starts feeling attracted to a Korean woman, Miu, who is 17 years older than Sumire. This woman has tremendous influence on Sumire and apart from being the object of the younger woman’s affections, Miu also influences the way Sumire dresses, behaves and lives. However, after falling in love with Miu, Sumire develops a writer’s block. Nevertheless, Sumire and Miu leave for Europe, from where Sumire writes to K. However, instead of returning home when planned, Sumire disappears and Miu asks K to come to Greece and help her in tracing Sumire.

Now the novel, which till now seemed more a story of unrequited love, becomes more interesting as there is a new twist in the story with Sumire’s disappearance. K finds a floppy disk with two documents: "Document 1" and "Document 2", the former recounting in Sumire's writing a dream in which she fails to reach version of her mother and the other a story of how Miu transformed 14 years ago (due to a disturbing event), into a white haired person who hates sexuality. Miu has therefore split in two on that night 14 years ago. Now the story takes on a more surreal note and becomes fantastical, which is one of the themes of Murakami’s work.

K realises that there are multiple worlds, and Sumire has entered a parallel world with the split part of Miu. While K is not able to find Sumire, he does feel an attraction to Miu, which does not come to anything. Unfortunately, the surreal feel of the novel ends about here. It is not satisfactory that he is not able to find out what happened with Sumire and it seems like Murakami could have worked further towards this part of the novel’s plot. The ending of the story does not satisfy either when K receives a phone call from Sumire at the end of the novel saying that she is calling from her usual phone booth. The normalcy to which the novel comes at the end, with Sumire falling in love with K is unreal and unbelievable.

The reader who expects something more from a novel dealing with the possibility of multiple universes and Sumire having gone to one of these universes, would be sorely disappointed with the lack of ‘meat’ in the novel’s plot with respect to what really happened to Sumire. Instead the novel goes from being a book of unrequited love to love requited at the end, with an broken promise of a novel of fantasy and surrealism. There is a hope of return to the theme of this surreal possibility of Miu being split into two, where towards the end, K spots her in a car with her hair all white. One may almost be forgiven for thinking that here we have the chance to get at what happened to Sumire. Is this Miu the one from the other universe? If so, where is Sumire? Alas, we do not see anything of the kind happening in the book and those who hope for something more in the lines of a fantasy novel will be disappointed here.

However, the novel by and far is never totally disappointing. The narrative is woven in beautiful language, which in itself is a treat to read. Murakami is a master writer and this fact comes through in the Sputnik Sweetheart. One can see it throughout the novel, in the way Murakami describes his characters (Sumire as "wild, cool, dissolute"), or other things (“the kind of air that felt like if you breathed it in, your lungs would be dyed the same shade of blue"), or people (“Sumire’s father was an almost mythic figure to the women in the Yokohama area who needed dental care”). As the last quote shows, there is a gently ironic way that Murakami sometimes uses in his novel.

If the novel disappoints in any way, it is because it does not deliver completely on the fantasy or surrealism narrative which is promises midway but does not quite grasp at completely. Murakami could have delved deeper into the mysteries of the metaphysical world which he gives a hint of in Documents 1 and 2 and the possibilities of Miu’s being not one, but two persons. However, he does not or chooses to not write deeper about it. Maybe he does not want to pin down the novel to a particular genre. Maybe he chooses to make his characters as lonely as possible. That may be the reason why there is no clear explanation or even a clear ending. The reader is left to put the pieces of the story with his own possibilities. That could be the reason why this book is so wonderful and difficult to define.

At the end of this review, it can only be said that the book is a wonderful piece of fiction, with more promise than it failed to deliver but which does not disappoint despite this. The strengths of the book are its ability to engage the reader with its tight story telling. Its principal weakness is that it does not quite delve deeper into the metaphysical plot that it contains in the middle of the book. It still remains a pleasant and interesting read.