On top of the nostalgia of lost relationships, ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ also deals with a more sinister side of the search for identity. Of course, with Murakami, it’s never quite as simple as all that. Like the song goes, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone… When we do meet a kindred spirit, it can be earth shattering and life changing, and it’s very easy, especially when we’re young, to think that the current situation will go on forever, sometimes leading you to take a once-in-a-lifetime experience for granted. In life, people are very much like satellites while we may occasionally cross paths and accompany each other for a while, we are all alone in the end, trying to understand who exactly we are. The connections the three characters have are strong, yet it is always clear that they are ultimately temporary, likely to end soon, and this is one of the writer’s key points. When Miu comes along, Sumire is instantly smitten and temporarily abandons her bohemian lifestyle and attempts to become a writer, following Miu to see where the trail will lead. to see things from another’s point of view, something he’s not always very good at doing by himself. serves as a sounding board for Sumire’s constant inquisitiveness, and Sumire helps to get K. The three main characters are all loners who have trouble defining their identity, and the relationships they enjoy with each other are a way to start to understand what they want. The central premise may seem like an ordinary love triangle, but the writer turns it into something more. Then he gets a phone call from Europe, and everything comes crashing down… gets on with his life, as most Murakami male protagonists do, with classical music, simple home cooking, enjoyable but meaningless affairs and the odd drink too. After Sumire flies off to Europe on a business trip with Miu, K.

(another hint of Murakami’s love of Kafka), is in love with an ex-college friend, Sumire, who in turn is in love with her new boss, Miu, who isn’t in love with anyone, not even her husband, because of a strange event in her life fourteen years ago. ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’, at 220-something pages, falls into the last category and, like most Murakami works, sucks the reader in with a perfect description of the everyday before blind-siding them with something a little more, shall we say, bizarre. As any regular Murakami reader knows, the Japanese author likes to alternate between slightly odd short stories, big mind-boggling novels, and short novels which, in their own way, are just as nutty as the rest of his writing.

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