Dance Dance Dance

If you like Murakami, you do not want to miss this wonderful addition to your Murakami library. It just grabs you and you don't want it to ever be over! This is a story you will be thinking about for a long time after you are finishing reading it.

A few short points1. My paperback copy is not the one with the woman’s eyes looming over a building. This seems to matter to some reviewers2. The Sheep man is not one of my favorite Murakami inventions.I became a fan of Haruki Murakami after reading IQ84. Since then I have been reading his books in order limited to what has been published in English. I am enjoying the process of the introduction of various signature Murakami constructs and conventions. Dance, Dance, Dance is not my favorite or closer to my favorite Murakami books. Of the things I like about it, is about the return of the Sheep Man, and more I cannot say at the risk of a spoiler. For me it is fun to note the advent of what will become staple characters and conventions. Otherwise I am not sure if this is a good starting point for someone with no previous experience of opinion about Murakami. Recommendation: a definite yes for Murakami fans and yes for newcomers but not an enthusiastic yes.Once again Murakami speaks to us via a nameless protagonist. He is pretty much the same character in his first three books and is not that different from the central male character we will find in some later books. He is slightly disaffected and alienated and speaks more for post Woodstock, Pre Yuppie generation. He is Japanese but as before heavily influenced by Western, especially American culture. He Drinks, constantly and is fairly ready to bed any woman who shares his interest in a one night stand.He is reflexively anti-establishment and takes unlikely to join a support the local police movement. This last part seems to be his only motivation for failing to cooperate with the police in a murder investigation. A failure that may seem heroic given how hard he works at it, but to me it seemed at best pointless and at worst a huge character flaw. This aspect of the novel seriously aggravated me. No doubt it might have read as a populist position at the time the book was published.Our un-named narrator for reason never clear is drawn to return to a sleazy, run down hotel as part of finding a previous girlfriend. He motives seems to be between a Spirit Walk and a rescue mission. It may be that the narrator is unsure which and not overly driven to completed either mission. Along the way he will reconnect with the Sheep man who will make his usual jumbled remarks. He will also interact in ways generally positive with several women; a teen ager, he mother and a Hotel employee and a fourth woman a skilled high price call girl.So yes there is some sex and I guess some violence but neither is graphic or involving many pages of exposition. The language is not likely to offend most readers, but if immorality, drinking, smoking, casual sex (discretely narrated) offend you Dance, Dance, Dance is not for you.

I do not have much to add to the other positive reviews.The negative ones are just silly (of course apart from the objection against abridging the English edition; that annoys me too, but let's not hold it against HM, and I would not have noticed anyway).I like the comparison made somewhere that this is like Kafka in a Chandler novel, but I have to object to the notion that Kafka had no sense of humour. Please read the Hunger Artist or even the Verwandlung again, what are they if not hilarious in a black sort of way.The protagonist of Dancex3 is sometimes like a Philip Marlowe without a mission, but that is a fleeting impression. He starts off looking for somebody, but gives up quickly. Marlowe wouldn't do that.Nothing sticks. The novel might be a normal noir mystery, if it did not escalate into esoterics once in a while. One expects that from HM.I liked the names of Yuki's disfunctional parents: the father's name, the writer's, is an anagram of HM's, and the mother is called Rain, like Barry Eisler's half Japanese killer. Coincidence?I liked the encounters with unexpected developments: the receptionist, the actor, the writer, of course the brat. One of HM's strengths, developing people relationships off the beaten track.What I mean by my review title: reading Murakami is like listening to Coltrane or the Stones or Brahms, it does not matter so much what the plot is, nor who the characters are, it is a purpose in itself. You don't need to learn anything from it, nor is it to be used in the sense of the protagonist's frequent spouts of "killing time". Of course it is not shoveling snow either.It is what it is. A way of life. Like meditation.Great stuff.

I continue to read Haruki Murakami with absolute delight. This is heralded as a sequel of his "Chasing wild sheep" It is helpful to read "Sheep", but it is not necessary as Murakami provides enough details to give you a solid background to read the story. I had finishing reading "Sheep" and was looking for another one of his stories (I have read six so far) to read. I researched some of the book reviews and "Dance, Dance, Dance" was recommended. One of the reason people were recommending the book is Murakami provides some biographically facts through his character and story. I thought "Sheep" was a good read. "Dance" was one of those books that not only do you relate to, but it become a friend and you are sad when it ends. The narrator is a lost soul at thirty four. By using character foils the narrator goes through a metamorphosis. The metaphysical world continues through the book with his lost girl "Kiki" leading the way. I also felt the author biographical part of the story, to the point I could relate to not only the narrator's metamorphous but some of the characters he meets.The only downside I found is you read a lot of Murakami, he seems to use stero type characters.To me it was a great book and one of the reasons I gave it five stars is there enough material in the philosophy and thought the major of the readers will enjoy it.

A very strange experience reading this book. It seemed to predict my present state and tell me about it after I’d had gone through a major or minor predicament, conversation or realisation. Sometimes incredibly specific. Maybe it’s to do with me about to undergo the amputation of my right hand,halfway up my forearm, I cannot tell. None of this spooked me, as Haruki’s writing is a kind of dream state flow, but it did intrigue me somewhat.What to read next to quilt my near future horrors?

Buen libro

Tolles Produkt.Immer wieder gerne.. :)

Dance, dance, dance is perhaps the first really strong novel by Murakami, the most mature, the one on which everything starts to build up; the answer to many of the loose ends that he usually leaves hanging in most of his novels. It is such a fine piece of work, written with such sharp that a rereading is necessary. Young Murakami shows his concern with the modern world in this piece more than in other previous or later works. A delightful journey from a detached man's mind to a connected one. All in all, I consider it to be the novel that helps find out answers to most Murakami's puzzles. Enjoyable to the core.

Murakami Haruki is like an old friend to me. Though he amazes me always. I wish I could write like he does. Just a copule of Pages. Of corse I suggest this novel. It'd be better to read it after the Rat Trilogy in my opinion.