For a change, I thought I’d do a review of what is still my favorite work from Murakami’s oeuvre.
Dance is the fourth book in the inaccurately dubbed “Rat trilogy,” with the same unnamed narrator getting caught up in unlucky circumstances usually involving clairvoyants, women with nice ears, and the Sheep Man.
Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball 1973, and A Wild Sheep Chase may possess similar elements and characters, but none of these earlier “Rat” works quite grasp the lyrical mystique or emotional intensity of Dance. Here, the narrator undergoes a journey of self-discovery of a highly different sort.
He dreams of a seedy hotel of which he used to take residence with a call girl named Kiki. For reasons not entirely explainable here, our narrator returns to the hotel to discover it has undergone new management. Once an underwhelming, under-run slump, the Dolphin Hotel is now beautiful, having had some serious Yakuza money dumped into it.
Our guy gets entangled with mysterious goings on as they apply to the Sheep Man, the Dolphin Hotel’s most secret resident. Don’t be thrown off by the Sheep Man’s difficult way of speaking. Or rather, Murakami’s choice of vocalization for him. The Sheep Man is a key character in understanding just what exactly is going on.
The narrator meets Yuki, a thirteen-year-old psychic with a penchant for new wave music. A huge Murakami trope is pop culture reference dropping, and this is highly utilized with various bands Yuki happens to be listening to whenever she is on the page. (The book takes place in 1983, so think Culture Club, The Police, Talking Heads, etc.)
Yuki falls into the care of the narrator at one point, as her famous photographer mother has been whisked away on assignment in another country and somehow forgets her daughter in the process. For much of the novel, these two are bound together and foster an unlikely friendship.
The way Murakami develops the narrator’s humanity using Yuki is worth noting. At first he is resigned to taking on the temporary care of a young girl he doesn’t know, only to become the only parental figure and friend she has. It is a truly beautiful friendship that could only possibly take Murakami’s words to justify (a 34-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl). And anyone with a casual interest in fiction, set aside Mr. Murakami, ought to get themselves a copy of this thing and find out what that’s all about.
There is mystery, murder, and even alternate dimensions. A dreamlike quality hangs over several scenes, and established Murakami fans will be pleased by the applications of jazz, classical, and food.
To me, this book is the culmination of all the fantastical Murakami elements gelling in perfect synchronization. The moments of tenderness are beautiful, while some other moments are downright creepy; maybe even scary.
It’s the standard by which I compare and contrast other Murakami works to.
A solid A-plus. Check it out.
