Is it day five already? My book of choice today is Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami …
… the sublimely surreal story of a writer, whose name we never know, who is broken and just about operating on a basic daily level.
The writer is haunted by a woman he once had a relationship with who has since mysteriously disappeared. He has vivid dreams about the time he spent with her in the seedy, Dolphin Hotel.
Driven to find out what happened to her, he returns to the hotel only to find it considerably changed. While there he has visions that could be dream, could be an alternate reality. Whichever they are, they give him access to the old hotel within the new hotel where he meets the bizarre Sheep Man. He begins a relationship with the hotel receptionist who is also able to experience this phenomenon. He meets a teenage psychic and ends up babysitting her; reconnects with an old school friend who is now a famous actor and gets involved in a murder mystery.
It’s a captivating book, the only one of Murakami’s I’ve read so far although I have another on my reading pile. Like so many of my favourite reads, it’s a book about personal journeys and healing.
I really like Murakami’s writing voice – kind of Japanese American, I’m not sure how else to describe it. I love the way he plays with the imaginary and the reality so that you’re not quite sure which is which. I like too, the way his characters are all a bit odd – even the one’s you’d expect to be quite normal. Nothing is as it seems in this novel.
