Book 20: DANCE, DANCE, DANCE by Haruki Murakami

[rick green]

A bit premature I know, but this story in the New Yorker might be nice for a warm up.

Nineteen-seventy-one was the Year of Spaghetti (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/content/articles/051121fi_fiction).
In 1971, I cooked spaghetti to live, and lived to cook spaghetti.

[John Self]

Ach! Is the man always going on about spaghetti? The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle begins with the narrator cooking spaghetti.

I haven't made any plans yet to get hold of a copy of Dance, Dance, Dance.

[Colyngbourne]

Just typed this and it didn't send.

I bought a copy second-hand in Edinburgh last August. It has a weird cover with a sheep-headed skeleton and people on sofas. I'll scan it as I can't find an image online.

[Colyngbourne]

Something's going wrong with the image resizing on Photobucket - hang on.

[Colyngbourne]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v160/HerbertHouston/Murakami.jpg

[Maggie]

Ach! Is the man always going on about spaghetti? The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle begins with the narrator cooking spaghetti.
I]


Maybe Murakem likes spaghetti ??

Maggie

[Jerkass]

I think I'm going to have to sit this one out, unfortunately. All-encompassing life (you know, that thing what goes on when we're not playing with the Palimp?) has been in the way recently, and my NaNoWriMoSest efforts, pathetic as they have been so far, are eating up my free time. I also made the mistake of starting London Fields when I should have gone for DDD (meaing the book, not the bra size) instead, and I'm completely engrossed and will not be convinced to put it down when I set time aside for reading. Maybe I'll find time to catch up as we hit December. Sorry if I do sit out, and sorry I haven't contributed to last month's discussion either--even though I probably finished reading it before most people.

[gil]

Although Dance, Dance, Dance is theoretically a sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase, it is certainly no problem not to have read AWSC. The Sheep Man (whom I never understood in AWSC) makes a cameo appearance in the D{ol|au}phin Hotel, (and still I didn't understand him) but that's about it.

Having now read a few Murakami books, I think I'm beginning to recognise a few patterns :

o The protagonist is first person masculine singular
o Spaghetti (or noodles) tends to crop up a lot
o He has usually just been jilted and is housekeeping for himself
o There is often a pet cat
o There is always at least one unattainable girl
o There is heavy use of clairvoyance, precognition, serendipitous coincidence and mystic dreamlike experience
o There is often a school-age girl who befriends him without sexual overtones

All of the above are present in DDD. There is also a lot of name-dropping of pop groups and branded products.

For variety, there is a murder in the book, and he is a suspect, but we all know who really did it right from the moment he has his collar felt. Unlike AWSC and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, there is a lot of milling around to no particular purpose.

Frankly, though I enjoyed the ride, and will continue to read Murakami, I found it hard to participate in his angst in DDD. I had the impression that he was making it hard for himself.

[John Self]

Ooer, is it December already? Must get hold of a copy of this...

[gil]

Hmmm... am I still the only poor sod who's read this?

[Stewart]

Hmmm... am I still the only poor sod who's read this?

No, I've read it but that was last year sometime.

I remember thinking things completely implausible - especially all the travelling with the thirteen year old girl - but coming away from the end of the book never truly knowing if I liked it or didn't.

Thinking about it now, perhaps a translation problem, but I got terribly tired of reading It's like shifting snow. Cultural snow. on every other page. Points off for annoying repetition.

I'm glad someone else didn't understand what the Sheep Man was all about - especially one that's read both A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance.

There's not much else I can remember about the book, except the hotel, a trip to Hawaii, and some phone calls.

So, thinking on it, Dance Dance Dance hasn't stopped me wanting to read more Murakami; but it hasn't made me want to read more Murakami right now. I've got The Wind-up Bird Chronicle although I feel he's one of those authors I'd pick up at a loss for something else.

[gil]

Yes. He does implausible rather well, I find. I also found the snow-shifting irritating. But the style is very readable. I read both WSC and DDD in a very small no of sessions.

[Wavid]

I am not going to get near this, I'm afraid. Pressure's of xmas and all that.

Sorry all.

[ono no komachi]

I liked it enough to then pick up Norwegian Wood, which I found a lot slower, but still enjoyed.

I enjoyed the 'whodunnit' element of DDD, (yes it's true that the culprit was fairly obvious, but I found the exploration of the issues that arose from that interesting) and I thought the character of Yuki was nicely drawn and liked the ambiguity of her relationship with the narrrator.

And I found the old/new Dolphin Hotel scenario intriguing. Murakami was very effective in his portrayal of the yearning, a kind of homesickness, that you have for someone you've made a connection with, even if you don't know them very well, in the description of the narrator's relationship with the hotel receptionist (whose name I can't quite remember).