Sputnik Sweetheart: Haruki Murakami

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I'll admit it; I don't really know what Sputnik Sweetheart is about. What I can tell you, is that its themes are love, the loss of love, passion, the loss of passion, desire, & the loss of desire. Are the events K relates real or a dream? The only thing I do know is Sputnik Sweetheart is a beautiful novel Adaptor Bryony Lavery has filleted the story down to its essential elements, in a brisk 80-minute telling that reflects the book’s peripatetic nature. The plot is a love story-cum-mystery, centering on a young teacher, K (Naruto Komatsu), and his friendship with aspiring novelist Sumire (Millicent Wong), who travels from Japan to Europe in pursuit of an older woman, Miu (Natsumi Kuroda), only to subsequently disappear.

It’s certainly a bold undertaking to adapt Haruki Murakami’s mercurial 1999 novel about unrequited love, the human condition and much else besides. The book is set in multiple global locations and features dream sequences, magical realism and, in typical Murakami fashion, no shortage of narrative meanderings. I believe what Murakami does is strip life of all flamboyance and expose how mundane it really is. How personal can a connection with a stranger be when some part of him/her will always be a mystery? We can know people, yet not know them. Is love simply a dream we see to avoid the reality of our lonely existence; each life in a separate orbit? Transformation – both voluntary and involuntary – is one of the central themes of this novel. The loneliness is not only borne of not being around others, but of being apart from one’s self. Each ruminates on loneliness in their own way: “Who can really distinguish between the sea and what’s reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?” meditates K. at one point. This detached passion runs throughout his narration: you get the feeling that in recounting Sumire’s love for Miu he is really giving voice to the love he has fantasised Sumire showing him. Yet typically for Murakami characters they prefer this sort of sexually enigmatic fantasy of love to actual love. Each of the protagonists lives out their own longing in their own unreciprocated – and therefore unsullied – way. Sputnik literally translates as ‘travelling companion,’ and that is what they are each looking for: a human connection, someone to talk to, fall asleep next to, and yearn for. Someone to free them from loneliness. And in a way that is what they each find, though not in the way any of them had hoped. I changed my mind (previously I rated it 4/5 🌟). I cannot rate this book any lower. Because at many levels, I can relate so much with this book.Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is, by any chance, a bad book. My low rating can be easily explained by the fact that I've already read too much Murakami. Part detective novel without detective or resolution, part love story without reciprocated love, pinning Sputnik Sweetheart down is far from easy. Everything seems to be “one step out of line, a cardigan with the buttons done up wrong.” Writing in The Guardian when it was first published, Julie Myerson professed to not really knowing what it was all about. “But”, she continued, “it has touched me deeper and pushed me further than anything I’ve read in a long time.”

If ever love has transformed a person it does Sumire. She becomes Miu’s assistant, exchanging a life of compulsive all night writing and chain smoking for a regular nine-to-five job. She buys nice clothes and changes her hairstyle, begins to appreciate wine and learn Italian, and soon moves into a bigger apartment. She spends hours on the phone with K., discussing the big questions in life: love, sexual desire, existentialism, the process of writing, whether she should confess her feelings to Miu. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.” Me asomo, alzo los ojos hacia un cielo todavía oscuro. En él, no hay duda, flota una media luna de tonos enmohecidos. Con eso basta. Estamos mirando la misma luna del mismo mundo. Estamos ligados a la realidad por una sola línea.» I closed my eyes and tried to bring to mind as many beautiful lost things as I could. Drawing them closer, holding on to them. Knowing all the while that their lives are fleeting." I need to cut the throat of a dog. I need to spill blood...no, no, that was how the novel went. But I am different. I don't need to spill blood. Spilling blood was only a metaphor anyway.How many Sumires have I known in my life? No less than four I would say. None of them vanished like smoke, and yet they are far away somehow. Sputnik Sweetheart is a profound meditation on human longing. Sumire is an aspiring writer who survives on a family stipend and the creative input of her only friend, the novel's male narrator and protagonist, known in the text only as 'K'. Like a Beatnik (Sputnik) writer, I return to this review looking for the portal. There is an island somewhere where all of the Sumires in my life still live. They are there waiting for me. She said: I really wanted to see you. When I couldn’t see you any more, I realized that. It was as clear as if the planets all of a sudden lined up in a row for me. I really need you. You’re a part of me; I’m a part of you.

Overall Sputnik Sweetheart feels somewhat incomplete. While the team has made a commendable effort in capturing the book’s mood, it comes at the expense of the depth and the heart that makes Murakami’s work so beloved. Murakami's writing is different in the sense that this one is a little mainstream compared to his other novels. Nevertheless this book is so charming. The characters are so realistic and character development is so damn amazing. Sumire’s mother died when she was very young and when she used to ask her dashing Father (a dentist too!) what her mother was like – all he could offer was “ She was good at remembering things and she had nice handwriting”. Now that small sample there is (a) Hilarious – I think and (b) such a simple way of describing the relationship between Sumire’s parents. Murakami – managed to do that in 11 words. Wow. This is what he does. As Sumire and Miu take a trip to Italy and Greece, Sumire unsuccessfully attempts to initiate a sexual relationship with Miu. In response, Miu opens up about a haunting trauma from her past that has left her devoid of any sexual desire and with hair as white as snow. Kuroda shines here as she recounts the night that Miu found herself trapped on a ferris wheel, yet also watching herself from a distance as she engaged in a peculiar sexual encounter in her far away apartment. The next morning, Sumire is gone, vanished without a trace, not to be seen again. K rushes to Greece to search for her and, becoming convinced she has left for another reality, he tries to follow her. Where the novel embraces magical realism, here the scene does not quite successfully transfer to the stage, leaving the moment just hazy and unclear. A lot of the cast’s movement is stylised, with Yuyu Rau (who later also plays K’s girlfriend Mrs Nimura) gracefully moving around the stage throughout. The almost ethereal movement adds an otherworldly dimension to the performance, also complementing suggestions of moving into different realities.It’s a good story. The structure of the book is a lot like that of Norwegian Wood. A young man loves a young woman but she is out of reach for some reason. There’s a lesbian sub-story in both books. The man also finds himself attracted to the older woman in each story. It seemed about time VL had a Murakami review, Anne! Glad you are a fan too. I think he’s ace – can you tell?