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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dancing through hyperspace,
This review is from: Dance Dance Dance (Paperback)
A sheep-man sits in a hotel room and operates a switchboard connecting the lonely, drifting narrator to a web of unforgottable individuals. The sheep-man's room is full of books about, well, sheep, and the narrator mostly experiences reality with the aid of his thirteen-year-old sort-of girlfriend. Logs of days spent "lolling" on the beach, wonderful descriptions of pizza, allusions to Boy George and the Talking Heads, and the sense of frantically trying to escape something (or is it find something?) all combine to make a novel that is not plotted, but choreographed.Dance Dance Dance is electrifying, captivating, and intense -- and it's pretty brainy too, much like Murakami's characters. The narrator's perspective is standard Murakami: the slightly dreamy, out-of-place 30ish man trying to reason with a world that seems stranger by the minute. Assumptions constantly fall, and no one is sure what or whom to believe. Yet the strange-goings on are the only thing rescuing the narrator from the miasma of ennui that comes from having rejected the dream of being a "salaryman" with a family and a linear, predictable lifestyle. This is a novel about staring out into the unknown -- and staring deeply into that unknown, it seems Murakami is saying, is the only way to find meaning if we reject the traditional lives that have been prearranged for us. The only slightly negative thing I can say about this novel is that the plot and the characters have uncanny similarities to those in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. It almost seems as if Murakami had one outline of a novel, which could go two different ways, and made one into the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and the other into this book. The narrator's voice, and many of the supporting characters, are exactly the same, as are several plot elements. Overall, this is significant, and highly enjoyable literature. It manages to ask deep questions about reality, fate, relationships, family, and life, while still packing the thrills of something much more pulpish.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Murakami's Unsurpassed Best Novel,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dance Dance Dance (Paperback)
Far superior to its successor, the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, this book wonderfully concludes the story of a protagonist started with "Hear The Wind Sing," "Pinball 1973," and "A Wild Sheep Chase." In this book, the protagonist, a self-employed loner who lives outside the "normal" conventions of the Japanese salaryman and society, sets out on a quest to find his girlfriend from "A Wild Sheep Chase." (For those who have not read "A Wild Sheep Chase," I will not ruin for you the circumstances that set this off). For the first few chapters, the protagonist is alone, walking the streets of Hokkaido, sitting in bars by himself and "contemplating the ashtray" (there must be tons of loners out there who can appreciate this) until eventually clues, both supernatural and other, take him to Tokyo and Hawaii, and introduce a slew of unforgettable, well written, deep characters. Such characters include Yuki, the troubled 13 year old psychic who is far superior to the undeveloped clone of May Kasahara in the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, the actor Gotanda, who can portray your life better than you can, the unforgettable detectives Bookish and Fisherman...the list goes on and on. What this book is, basically, is the fulfillment of the personal quest. It is a book that will be best appreciated by people who have been loners, stand removed from the "norms" of society of a wife, a 9 to 5 job in an impersonal office, two kids, a pet, and perhaps even a dedication to any particular religion, and have, as such, culivated a deep level of observation, a bit of an alienation to and from society, and perhaps a personal subconscious inkling/longing for a supernatural happenstance such as The Dolphin Hotel that make up for a lack of belief in any conventional religious notion accepted by the masses...
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
My First Murakami Experience,
By
This review is from: Dance Dance Dance (Paperback)
I picked up Murakami on a whim. I had been exploring Japanese literature, but my preferences were for the ancient works. Yet, something about it spoke to me. Maybe it was the wild title, maybe it was the synopsis, maybe it was fate.
What I found was a strange, surreal noir. At heart, it's a detective story. The search for a long-lost love (so cliche that it becomes subversive and the subplots seem to take center stage) in a place out of memory that isn't what it seems. The narrator wanders through a dreamland of wild experiences pulled from Murakami's imagined reality that just drips with an old-school sensibility. It almost seems perfect for a 30's or 40's era noir film, pulpy and beautiful. What I liked most about it was how empty it all felt. His narrator is a loner, and the world that was built emphasized this. It just seems a lonely book, and all the characters seem motivated by loneliness. It's a great atmospheric, not overly dramatic but understated in the dry humor in the piece. What seems most interesting is how the narrators various threads of story all eventually come back to the main plot, which becomes muddled throughout the tale. It all comes back to point out the interconnectedness of people, the power of consequence and luck in determining destiny, and a kind of grand design where it all seems to work out without any reason why (even when working out isn't the best option). It's not deus ex machina, it's how real life seems to work, and Murakami captures that chaotic purpose beautifully. I've gone on to read other Murakami, but this one stands out in my mind, being the first. It's a sequel to a book I'm not sure I want to read, but it's complete on its own. I don't want to know about the narrator's previous adventures, that's how good this book is at telling this man's story. A wonderful tale, highly recommended.
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