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Title: Dance Dance Dance by Alfred Birnbaum, Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0-679-75379-6 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 January, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.58 (40 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: enjoyable surreal weirdness; amongst Murakami's best
Comment: Haruki Murakami mostly writes books that fall into two categories: either the 'confused but in love' bucket, or the 'confused young man finds himself totally weirded-out' bucket. The first category has Murakami classics such as 'Norwegian Wood' and 'South of the Border, West of Sun', and the latter has 'A Wild Sheep Chase' and 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'. 'Dance, Dance, Dance', being a sequel to 'A Wild Sheep Chase', is about as weird as anything published by Murakami. And it is about as good, ... which is to say it is very good indeed.
It is very hard to explain the novel since the story is so .. strange, convoluted, surreal, etc. We have altered realities, a 13 year old spoilt girl with precognition powers, and a befuddled young Japanese man caught in the middle. It all works, sort of. Believable? Not even close.
Bottom line: a book best enjoyed by seasoned Murakami readers. Fans will love it.
Rating: 5
Summary: How can I find great review titles for these great books?
Comment: Although Dance Dance Dance is probably my favorite Haruki Murakami novel besides The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and possibly the deepest, I just have to start with an amusing observation. That is that four of the five Murakami novels I've read have prominently involved mysterious vanishing women. Sometimes they show up again soon, sometimes later, and sometimes not at all. I might think he was running short of ideas if his novels were not so rich in imagination that each plot works.
But on to more important points. I'm finally getting a grasp on what Murakamis are all about. In this one, we meet an unnamed writer of magazine filler articles (shoveling snow is his metaphor; someone has to do it, so it may as well be him). In the beginning he finds himself out of town, staying at the site of the Dolphin hotel where four years earlier his girlfriend just vanished one day. Now, he finds that the run down dump has been replaced by a glittering new luxury hotel of the same name. Compelled to stay, he meets up with an attractive young clerk, and discovers strange goings on. Later he escorts a young girl back to Tokyo and meets up with an old school friend who is now a famous actor. Through it all we see him passing through a world of shallowness and false glamour, and get a taste of yearning for a simpler life.
As usual, I find it hard to say more about what actually happens. So much of Murakami is hidden in the style and the background that I dare not say too much for fear of giving something away. It's better to get it from the actual text than from me. He returns to (or predates, I'd have to check the copyright dates) the sort of strange and unsettling otherworldliness that we find in Wind Up Bird, but the effect here is not as jarring to the consciousness of the reader. All in all, an exceptional work
Rating: 4
Summary: So I can dance after all?
Comment: Before I start actually reviewing this book, I should note that I haven't read any of Murakami's other books, so I can't comment on how this one compares. I was also unaware until just now that the book was a sequel to "A Wild Sheep Chase." I actually have a hunch that "Dance Dance Dance" works better without having read that book, but obviously I can't say for sure. At any rate, it stands on its own.
Despite containing many impossible things, "Dance Dance Dance" is a very realistic book. I say this because not everything that happens fits neatly into an overarching structure, and some events never end up making sense. Neither of those things are true of most novels, but they almost always apply to real life. The characters, weird as they are, almost all have authenticity. This is especially true of the nameless protagonist.
It's necessary to learn what to expect from this book. If you read it looking for a straight-up mystery that resolves itself in the traditional way, as is tempting, you will be disappointed. What you can expect is an entertaining, darkly surreal, and ultimately reassuring story which probably would have been classified as urban fantasy had it been written by an American or British author or magical realism had it been written by a Latin American. Seen that way, I really can't think of any particular flaws in it. The lack of a fifth star is due to the absence of superlative things, not the presence of bad ones.
The authors this book reminded me of most were Philip K. Dick and Neil Gaiman, though it doesn't resemble either so strongly.
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Title: A Wild Sheep Chase : A Novel by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 037571894X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International) by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679743464 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle : A Novel by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679775439 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: South of the Border, West of the Sun : A Novel by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679767398 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0375726055 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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