Haruki Murakami: Sputnik Sweetheart

[Refus de Sejour]

Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart, translated by Philip Gabriel. + 1/2.

Not my first choice, but it was the only Murakami left on the library shelf yesterday afternoon. Easy, quick reading. Murakami's a weird one; I do find the oddness, the surrealistic quality of his ideas interesting, but the fact is his prose style itself leaves a lot to be desired (I am reliably informed that this is also true of the original Japanese, not just the English translations). The book, stylistically, occasionally hits a high note, but it also comes up with clunkers like this:

I thought about Sumire. About the colossal hard-on I had the time I sat beside her when she moved into her new place. The kind of awesome, rock-hard erection I'd never experienced before. Like my whole body was about to explode.

"Awesome," indeed. And then there are the weird similes, not so much uncanny as just plain wonky:

the clatter of the ice cubes echoed hollowly, like the groans of a robber hiding in a cave.

She didn't seem to have to diet. Even so, it would appear she was superstrict about food. Like some Spartan holed up in a mountain fortress.

Not to mention a fair bit of name-dropping:

A large truck coming to a halt at a red light blatted its hoarse air brake, reminding me of Ben Webster on the Tenortone in his later years.

But despite all that, I still like it. Under all the clunk and wonkiness, there is a strange, hard, alluring core. The descriptions of Miu's experience in Switzerland sent a nicely disturbing shiver down my spine.

[Daniel del Real]

One of his weakest novel but still clever and entertaining. It feels more like a long story than a novel.

[miercuri]

I remember enjoying this quite a bit when I read it three or four years ago. I don't remember all that much now, though. I can see why you would make those points about Murakami's style, but at the same time I feel like these shenanigans work fine for him. There are bits that do tend to stand out as awkward but I think that in the context they can easily be overlooked, because the general tone in his books is simply very relaxed and tame, even when the pace picks up.
I see his sudden register switches as a sort of trademark, I am always amazed at how effortlessly he can introduce magical realism in his narrative without any previous build up. He has a way of making the reader suspend disbelief without being fully aware of the moment when it happens. I particularly enjoy that. I am sure I have read other writers who achieve something similar, but Murakami has a very distinctive 'flavour'.
I think this trick works for his choice of words as well, quirky bits pop up but they seem as light as soap bubbles. There is a sense of weightlessness about his prose, and I mean this in a good way. I'd call his book his books 'light-reading', not meaning in any way to imply that sort of cheapness that is usually associated with the term. I should read some Murakami this summer.