Orbiting reading: "Sputnik Sweetheart" by Haruki Murakami

The first time the word "Sputnik" appears in this Murakami novel is as a mix-up for the word "beatnik", but it is, as you might expect, a meaningful confusion. As we are quickly reminded, Sputnik means "travelling companion", and it is in this sense that it is intended throughout this strange novel, albeit applying principally to a character who is an aspirant beatnik. 

Sputnik Sweetheart is characteristic of its author in many ways, with at its core a tale of unrequited love, impossible desire and shifting personalities. There are three characters to speak of: "K", the male narrator, a solitary, kind, bookish schoolteacher; Sumire, an aspiring writer of the beatnik sort, given to frantic, talent-filled, but ultimately inconclusive, bouts of writing, 3.00 am phone calls to her friend K to discuss matters of intimate import and a preference for charity shop coats and workman's boots; and finally, Miu, a sophisticated rather older woman, a smart, wealthy, cultivated importer of European wines to Japan.

K loves, and desires, Sumire. He has done since they were students together, but has assumed the role of friend and intimate confidant because, though she trusts him totally and loves him as a friend, she cannot return his romantic feelings for her. It is thus he to whom Sumire turns to tell him of the sudden and extraordinary passion she feels for Miu. This loves comes out of nowhere - Sumire had no prior notion of being a lesbian, indeed of being anything very much other than a writer, before meeting Miu, if that is in fact what she is - but becomes the dominant force in her life, transforming her. She takes a job working for Miu, she begins to dress elegantly and fashionably, she starts wearing makeup. The two become close, but, as becomes clear in a scene written with extraordinary power, Miu cannot reciprocate, not because Sumire's attentions trouble her - she wishes she could respond - but because she is unable to feel any desire or physical connection with another.


So these are our sputniks, three individuals circling each other, held in orbit by the force of one-way attractions, but destined not to approach closer, travelling companions, but at the same time solitary, navigating the void alone. This is expressed beautifully by the character we ultimately find to be the most isolated of the three, Miu:

And it came to me then. That we were wonderful travelling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing. 

The central crisis of the novel is precipitated, as we subsequently discover, by Sumire's attempt to break this logic of isolation and loneliness. The crisis takes the form of Sumire disappearing, vanishing utterly and even impossibly, on the somehow ominous but beautiful Greek island where she and Miu have been holidaying at the end of a business trip. Sumire's disappearance induces Miu to contact K, who rushes to join her on the island and help her find the missing girl. In the event, his detective work centres not on a physical search, but rather a metaphysical one, with the puzzle not exactly solved, but possibly viably interpreted, thanks to two pieces of Sumire's writing he finds on a hidden floppy disc. 

In one of these, we discover the reason for Miu's inability to love and desire as others do. It is a very Murakami reason. Personalities and identities are often fluid and changeable in his work, and so it is with Miu, who literally (literally?) loses half of herself, the part capable of carnal love and, into the bargain, musical creation, in the course of a tragic experience in a small Swiss town, during which, briefly, two versions of herself coexist. In Sumire's reading, a part of Miu, the part which could perhaps return her love, has "passed to the other side". 

In the other text K reads, Sumire muses on exactly this issue: the splits and fissures in personalities, but also the possibility of transcending them. It is here that Sumire explains her intention to break through to Miu, either the one sleeping in the room next door, or the one who has gone to the "other side". So, we infer, when Sumire fails to reach Miu on this side, she disappears to the other, to seek out the other half of Miu, the side that was lost in a traumatic incident in a small Swiss town some years before.

Murakami's characters do this thing quite a lot, as it happens. Strange metaphysical happenings entangle themselves with a very modern, very recognisable world. But we are not in Gaiman-esque fairy-tale land here, rather a kind of metaphorical reading of the real world, attempting to interpret real lives. 

But how? One knows with Murakami not to expect neat plot solutions and tidy meanings, but it is hard to get a grip on this short novel. The Guardian reviewer of the book, Julie Myerson, when it came out in 2001 was admiring, and admirably frank:

I don't really know what Murakami's startling new novel is about. But it has touched me deeper and pushed me further than anything I've read in a long time.

 I can see what she means: like much Murakami, it infects you, carries you along, fascinates and perplexes you. It says things about loneliness, human disconnectedness, love, desire et al, but what it is all about, I guess that that has to seep through over time, if indeed it has to be about anything.

Recommendation: if you are a Murakami fan and somehow haven't read this one yet, then go ahead. If you can't stand Murakami, you won't be able to stand this. If you're curious, I would say to start, as I have before, in another Murakami review, either with the (admittedly much longer) "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" - people cross to the other side in that one too - or the cult classic "Norwegian Wood".