Sputnik Sweetheart : Chapters 1-8

My most recent posts are all Murakami-centric. For this fact, I am not sorry. The guy write some weird and fantastic books. 10/10 would recommend.

Beforehand: 

Before beginning Sputnik Sweetheart today, I read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki over Wednesday and Thursday, as well as A Wild Sheep Chase before that. Both aren't out-of-this-world weird on the surface, but were definitely not ordinary. A Wild Sheep Chase is unapologetically odd. Like, really odd. The tone is ironically pretty passive and neutral though, constant with Murakami's style of protagonists and magical realism. The plot was a slow one too, until the explosive end (that was a pun). On the other hand, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki is headache-inducing when you think deeply over the plot and its symbols. I needed to give my mind a rest, so I settled on reading Sputnik Sweetheart next. Sputnik is known as one of Murakami's more traditional novels, along with Norwegian Wood which is also similar in length, and the first Murakami book I read. 

So far:

First off, I have to say, for such a short book (210 pages), Sputnik Sweetheart has a long exposition. It was only at about halfway through the book that I began turning pages more consistently. Though definitely not bad, it seems to take quite a while to get into the story. Colorless had a very distinct gloomy mood to it, but I struggled to distinguish a feeling for the first half of Sputnik. Personally, I also struggled to get a good picture of the setting.

 This starts to change where I am right now, at the end of the eighth chapter. K has just arrived in Greece after Miu called him, alerting him of Sumire's disappearance. After he arrives on the island, the pictures formed much more easily in my mind and are gorgeous. The mood of summer is also illustrated beautifully. While reading, I was filled with summer longing and nostalgia. I look forward to the events unfolding in this setting.

On what's to come:

Though I'm eager to continue reading, I'm also scared. Why? Because Haruki Murakami, that's why. A disappearance almost certainly means death, or disappearance from this dimension entirely. Is Sumire dead? Did she literally just stop existing? I have not read on Murakami book that didn't have an open-ending either, so who knows? Seriously, the book might never say what happened to her...