Dance Dance Dance: Haruki Murakami
£6.60£9.50 (-31%)
An assault on the senses, part murder mystery, part metaphysical speculation; a fable for our times as catchy as a rock song blasting from the window of a sports car.
High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem.
Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami’s idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance.
‘If Raymond Chandler had lived long enough to see Blade Runner, he might have written something like Dance Dance Dance’ Observer
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | 1st edition (7 Feb. 2002), Vintage |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 400 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0099448769 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0099448761 |
| Dimensions | 19.7 x 12.9 x 2.4 cm |
by Mike Dale
I had read a great deal about Murakami without actually reading any of his work. Many of the reviews described his work as surreal or mystical, two words almost guaranteed to keep me at arm’s length. But eventually I succumbed, after reading that Dance, Dance, Dance was a more ‘real’ work. I am very glad that Idid.
The story covers a year in the life of a writer. Not famous or particularly distinguished, he writes blurbs for corporate magazines, websites and so on. But beneath his daily world is an obsession with finding XXXX, a hooker that he had known and lived with briefly, but who has disappeared. His search leads him back to the Dolphin Hotel in Sapporo and here his life begins to change.
The people he meets and places that he visits are all somehow intertwined around the life of XXXX. His untangling of the knots is the story. Marukami writes in a calm, gently paced style which is surprisingly difficult to put down. Of course, this is translated from his native Japanese, but the flow, the descriptions of people and circumstance are beautifully created.
I am now moving on to another of his books and will, I have no doubt, eventually try one of the more surreal or mystical works. In the meantime, I thoroughly recommend Dance, Dance, Dance.
by Guy
The sequel to
A Wild Sheep Chase
was another of Murakami’s books I found it difficult to develop a strong opinion on either way. The first 100 pages or so breezed past, with echoes of the earlier novel reverberating around and opening up some interesting possibilities, unfortunately I didn’t feel the second half the book lived up to the promised potential.
As always, Murakami writes beautifully and lyrically with a cast of well-thought out and believable characters and that will be enough to satisfy some. In recent interviews, the author’s said that he doesn’t really plan out his plots, he just sits down and writes, and I think the drawbacks of that style are particularly evident here, as things seem to rather peter out near an ending which is much more low-key than the build up suggested. I still quite liked it in places, but this is far from Murakami’s best.
by Andrew Howell
With ‘Dance, Dance, Dance’ Murakami has scored another major hit. Here we have a typical Murakami anti hero, a journalist who specialises in magazine articles of the most un-inspiring variety. He is fascinated by an old relationship and by the hotel in which this came to an end. he re-traces his steps back to the hotel which is no more and that has been replaced by a stylish and modern hotel. But something is not right. The resulting quest to find out the truth about his past lover, the hotel and the other characters he meets takes us into the usual Murakami world, part urban realism and part magical realism.
It say on the sleeve that Murakami most be one of the greatest novelists in the world – probably true this! A truly original talent.
by Anistitis
I fell in love with Murakami when I first read Kafka on the Shore which is still my favourite. This book however although written in similar Murakami style I find to be more gripping.
It started off fairly lightly and amusing which then conjured up to surrealism (which is his forte) and then spun into a complete fantasy plus reality all mix into one. It’s about a man who does his job by reviewing restaurant across Japan then on a quest to find someone he used to know in his past. in quest of looking for that person, he encountered someone else he knew from the past, someone (or something!) who seemed to hold his past, present and future, a kid who seemed to not be part of the plot yet somehow does and a character who seemed to be a centre essence who played the link to his life.
It’s not so much of the plot but it’s more of the narrative style and how Murakami engages you into his world. I speed up my reading dying to know what happens next! He teases you and gives you bits of information at a time, pauses to make you think and make you forget you want to get throught the book.
Bizarre but brilliant. But since I still prefer Kafka on the Shore better, I have to give this a 4 star!
by mr c f mcgarry
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?
by Drayfus
One of my favourite writers of all time and he doesn’t disappoint with this excellent last part to the rat series. I read a wild sheep chase before this but I didn’t read the very first novels in the series (Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball) but it doesn’t matter whether you read the whole series or not. Each book is brilliant in its own way.
If you are new to Murakami, I reccomend starting with 1Q84 – it’s such a stunningly exquisite way of writing that will most likely turn you into a huge fan of Murakami and want to read all his books! Dance Dance Dance is another one of my favourites. Highly recommended author and a fantastic book.
by Amazon Customer
another enjoyable read following on from the ‘wild sheep chase’. It truly helps to complete the story while leaving the readers imagination to wander through the possibilities explored by murukami’s world . Challenging our perspective on social norms Murukami is the master of subtlety, subtly presenting us with challenging concepts and constructs . The book is punctuated with that dry sarcastic humour between a very believable/realistic narrative woven over an impossible plotline.
Definitely worthwhile reading but not my favourite of his work