Haruki Murakami

Twenty two year old, Sumire is in love for the first time with a woman seventeen years her senior, Miu. Surprised that she might, after all, be a lesbian, Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend, K, a primary school teacher, who is used to answering questions, but what he most wants to say to Sumire is I love you.

Sputnik Sweetheart

i began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. no matter who i was dealing with. i maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer. i didn’t easily swallow what other people told me. my only passions were books and music

"And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling 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.”

Helen 

The Earth, after all, doesn't creak and groan its way around the sun just so human beings can have a good time and a bit of a laugh.

Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel. Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire. Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished... ** Murakami’s new novel is coming ** COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE 'The reason why death had such a hold on Tsukuru Tazaki was clear. One day his four closest friends, the friends he’d known for a long time, announced that they did not want to see him, or talk with him, ever again'

Laura

...but if I can be allowed a mediocre generalisation, don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it'd lose even it's imperfection.

Celine

Hatte ich das Richtige getan? Das Richtige sicher nicht, höchstens das Notwendige. Das ist ein großer Unterschied. Ich musste daran denken, dass sie gefragt hatte, ob es so wirklich »für alle« das Beste sei. Um die Wahrheit zu sagen, hatte ich gar nicht an alle gedacht. Nur an Sumire. Weder an andere Menschen noch an mich, nur an Sumire, die nirgendwo war.

Für jeden von uns gibt es etwas ganz Besonderes, das sich ihm nur in einem bestimmten Augenblick als schwache kleine Flamme darbietet. Einige achtsame, vom Glück begünstigte Menschen hegen diese Flamme, bis sie groß genug ist, um ihnen wie eine Fackel den Lebensweg zu erhellen. Erlischt diese Flamme jedoch, können wir sie nie wieder entzünden. Ich hatte nicht nur Sumire verloren. Als sie verschwand, war auch die kostbare Flamme erloschen.

»Stärke ist ja an sich auch nichts Schlechtes. Im Rückblick habe ich jedoch den Verdacht, dass ich mich zu übertriebener Stärke erzog, was schließlich dazu führte, dass ich auf die Schwächen anderer herabsah. Ich erzog mich zum Glück und zur Gesundheit, ohne je zu versuchen, Verständnis für Glücklose und Kranke aufzubringen. Sooft ich einem Menschen begegnete, der von seinem Unglück wie gelähmt war, dachte ich in meiner Überheblichkeit, er habe sich eben nicht genügend angestrengt.

»Stärke ist ja an sich auch nichts Schlechtes. Im Rückblick habe ich jedoch den Verdacht, dass ich mich zu übertriebener Stärke erzog, was schließlich dazu führte, dass ich auf die Schwächen ande- rer herabsah. Ich erzog mich zum Glück und zur Gesundheit, ohne je zu versuchen, Verständnis für Glücklose und Kranke aufzubringen. Sooft ich einem Menschen begegnete, der von seinem Unglück wie gelähmt war, dachte ich in meiner Uberheblichkeit, er habe sich eben nicht geniügend angestrengt. 

Wenn ich vor einer Klasse stand und den Schülern das Grund- wissen der Welt, des Lebens und der Sprache vermittelte, hatte ich Gelegenheit, alles noch einmal durch die Augen und das Bewusstsein der Kinder zu sehen, was sich als erfrischende, ja sogar profunde Erfahrung erwies. 

Dabei spielt Erfahrung immer eine orößere Rolle als Logik, und die Praxis überwiegt die Theorie. Dass es jedoch fast unmöglich ist, die eigenen Erkenntnisse anderen zu vermitteln, musste ich mehrmals schmerzlich am eigenen Leibe erfahren. 

Ein Sachverhalt, der sich mit einem einzigen Buch erklären lässt, bräuchte eigentlich überhaupt nicht erklärt zu werden. 

Schweigend wartete Sumire darauf, dass ich weitersprach. »Beim Schreiben von Romanen ist es nicht viel anders. Auch wenn man einen Haufen alter Knochen sammelt und ein prächtiges Tor baut, heißt das noch lange nicht, dass daraus ein lebendiger Roman entsteht. Eine richtige Geschichte hat einen geisterhaften Zauber und ist nicht von dieser Welt. Damit die Verbindung von Diesseits und Jenseits entsteht, ist so etwas wie eine magjsche Taute nötig,«

Sofia Kopkášová

Don’t pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it’d lose even its imperfection.

Emma Kim

Dieser Satz imponiert mir, denn er trifft den Kern der Realität. Die Unvermeidlichkeit von etwas zu begreifen, das schwer zu akzeptieren ist. Schüsse und dann Blut.

 Ich hielt ihre Entscheidung für richtig, gestatte mir jedoch den etwas banalen Einwand, dass in unserem unvollkommenen Dasein auch Überflüssiges seine Berechtigung hat. Würde man aus einem ohnehin unvollkommenen Leben auch noch alles Überflüssige streichen, bliebe wohl nicht mehr viel davon übrig.

lina

When I get up in the morning and see my face in the mirror, it looks like someone else's. If Im not careful, I might end up left behind."

An unrequited love for a woman devoted to Kerouac and the writer's life leads a man on a quest to uncover the mysteries of love and human longing after the woman disappears without a trace during her odyssey from parochial Japan through Europe to a Greek island, leaving behind only computer accounts of bizarre events and stories within stories. Reprint.

A Novel

The Sputnik Sweetheart

Edward Steel

Srijita Sarkar 

claire sim qiu yan

Anjorin Molayo 

sputnik sweetheart is like losing what you thought you owned, and then realizing it was never yours. it’s such a riveting and engrossing story, one that makes you dream. i really liked it. 

the three characters in this book are either a victim of unrequited love or incapable of being in love. they listen, talk, and nod and at the end of the day, go back to their lonely lives and continue to love just the person who cannot love them back. 

this book made me realize that you can connect with a total stranger, it could even be on a personal level, when some part of them will always remain a mystery. we can know people, yet not know them. 

it also makes me wonder, is love just a dream we see to avoid the reality of our lonely existence?

“But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows—maybe even tomorrow.”

“In dreams you don’t need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don’t exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don’t hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites.

Reality truly bites.

Sputnik Sevgilim

ebrar

tipik bir murakami kitabı idi, sanırım okuduğum 9. eseri ve bazı şeylerin tekrarı beni yordu ama her şeye rağmen bu kitaptaki boşluklar onu sevmeme neden oldu.

Maria João Lourenço

Sputnik, meu amor

Teresa Bonifácio

Sputnik, my love is a book about unrequited love. About three people that for some reason or another don’t match the love that the other feels for them. It’s like what you’re reading is a dream and not reality.

I’m not fully sure what to believe but, I don’t think there was a parallel universe. I believe the change in appearance that happened in Sumire when she met Miu and the change in appearance of K after Sumire disappeared is a foreshadowing that is based in their mental states. I believe Miu also went through a change in mental state, but the reason she didn’t die or “disappear” is because she survived meaning: did not kill herself. Her hair permanently turned white, which can happen in times of extreme trauma, but she survived. Even though she survived she was never the same, which is a common occurrence when somebody gets that close to suicide. I believe after feeling rejected Sumire killed herself. I have zero idea where her body went. That’s one thing I don’t have an answer for I believe after reading all of Sumires letters in Greece she went through a light psychosis, which explains the unexplainable music playing in the middle of the night on a mountain in Greece. I believe K left Greece. I believe K broke up with his girlfriend (the mother of one of his students) to tie up his ends and I believe the reason something seemed off when he was talking to a security guard was because he was a shell of his former self. I believe the night he was called by his friend, was actually him killing himself to be with her.

Amanda Autumn Berrey

From the first line until the end, this book keeps me intrigued. A book that represents unrequited love perfectly and how it could drive one mad. It’s also a good read to counter book slumps as it only has 16 chapters. I finished it in a week. Definitely would recommend for those who recently dive into Haruki Murakami’s works. 

teia

I told my friend who recommended Murakami books to me this: “You know, you’re right. I’ve grown to appreciate the style in his writing. It doesn’t feel like reading; it’s more like watching the story unfolds before my eyes, and I don‘t even need to actively think most of the time.” I love how the characters in Murakami’s books are grown-ups with boring lives and tendencies to isolate themselves in self-indulgence. Exactly how the narrator of 

 was. In the book, some lines in the dialogs strike a romantic indication, yet they manage to steer clear of being overly cheesy or outright cringy. It sounds like they come from someone who loves deeply, engaging both heart and mind. I can relate to Sumire in some aspects; a full-time hopeless romantic, sometimes a person with a lack of understanding of herself. Yet, she was keen to seek answers. 

A question that lead Sumire to a make-believe place, an unknown territory separated by glass, to make sense of the paradox of it all. 

. I could hear her saying. “Maybe this had all been meticulously planned, from the very beginning.” 

🏹

I told my friend who recommended Murakami books to me this: “You know, you’re right. I’ve grown to appreciate the style in his writing. It doesn’t feel like reading; it’s more like watching the story unfolds before my eyes, and I don‘t even need to actively think most of the time.” I love how the characters in Murakami’s books are grown-ups with boring lives and tendencies to isolate themselves in self-indulgence. Exactly how the narrator of Sputnik Sweetheart was. In the book, some lines in the dialogs strike a romantic indication, yet they manage to steer clear of being overly cheesy or outright cringy. It sounds like they come from someone who loves deeply, engaging both heart and mind. I can relate to Sumire in some aspects; a full-time hopeless romantic, sometimes a person with a lack of understanding of herself. Yet, she was keen to seek answers. 


Who in the world am I?


A question that lead Sumire to a make-believe place, an unknown territory separated by glass, to make sense of the paradox of it all. Answers, answers. I could hear her saying. “Maybe this had all been meticulously planned, from the very beginning.” 

trezaa

type of book that u like but u wouldn't recommend it to anyone else bc its kinda fucked

𓆨

Camilla

comforting because of the slow-winding pace .. but also..  confusing if u don’t have a great control over ur imagination

★★★★★ // i just know that every time i’ll think about this book, i would get this incredibly sad and nostalgic feeling. probably the most romantic yet heartbreaking Murakami i’ve read. that ending—oh, that ending.

atlantisli

Okuduğum ilk Murakami romanı. Kesinlikle okurken keyif aldığım bir kitap oldu ama sonun açık bitmesi hakkında ne düşündüğümü bilmiyorum..

Certainly, my favorite work by Murakami. The novel is intriguing, charming, and well-crafted. Murakami adeptly recognizes that, to compose profound sentences, elaborate language is not a requisite. There is beauty in simplicity and magic.

remiel

Haritlak Thawikasikam

Probably the loneliest book from Murakami.

Jayme Cochrane

• Classical music
• Cigarettes
• Cats
• A woman disappears

Yup, it's a Murakami novel.

All the ingredients were there for a signature Murakami, but the cocktail didn't pack the usual punch.

Frederik De Bosschere

camila mirrorball 

Bilge Ince

Haruki Murakami eserleri benim için ya karanlık ya beyaz kadar net; ya çok beğeniyorum ya da hiç sevmiyorum ve yarıda bırakmak istiyorum. Sputnik sevgilimi ise bir çırpıda okudum ve bayıldım.

 Yeterince bildiğimizi düşündüğümüz şeylerin arkasında, bir o kadar da bilmediklerimiz gizlidir..

Eine Geschichte über das ich noch lange und oft nachdenken werde. Mitreißend, spannend und gruselig einfühlsam. Werde ich definitiv noch einmal lesen.

" Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep."

This book was breathtaking, and that's all I want to say

Emma Lechner

" Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep."

This book was breathtaking, and that's all I want to say

Leonor

If there is one activity that fills me with enthusiasm is reading books recommended by people who mean the world to me. Well, Sputnik, Sweatheart was one of those cases. I embarked on this strange, magical and lyrical world rather reluctantly, frightened by the great name that is Haruki Murakami and afraid of not understanding or absorbing the story in the way it asked for.

Sputnik, Sweetheart sings of unrequited love, unfulfilled ambition, desire and, above all, loneliness. We travel through what might have been and what might be, where the world of love and lust is wrapped up. 

Perhaps because Murakami's writing seems and presents itself in such a simple way, without many flourishes, nor does it read too technical, we are surprised by how, in the end, we are left aimless and questioning what we have just read. There is no way to explain the experience that is reading this story, much less all the interpretations that can be drawn from it. 

I'll be honest, I can't even explain what this book is about. A missing woman, classical music, cats, dreams, love, loss, passion, desire..
The only thing I can tell you is that I finished the book with the feeling of purest emptiness, longing to gaze wistfully through the windowz There are parts of this book that felt like a pure hallucinogenic experience and I don't know if I will ever fully understand them, but until then I will be content to watch the stars and search for love satellites.

I thought it was good, and beautifully written, though I can't truly fathom the meaning behind the book. Maybe that adds to the mystery of it? 

azriel

Rowan Myers

Any book that has semiotics as a metaphor for love - which is apt - is going to get four stars from me. At least.

Sputnik Sweetheart

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