On Sputnik Sweetheart

I've been writing this for a while, and nothing came out quite right. It is the experience, the feeling as whole that I'm missing here. It's sth vast, blurry that wraps around you when you read it, and pinpointing it is just impossible.

Giving it a try anyway. Coz I think you, Pearl, may want to check it out.

Okay, gotta admit. I’m a sucker for writing style, rather than the plot. Haven’t read much of Haruki’s works, but I love how Sputnik Sweetheart is beautifully and emotionally written. A haunting melancholy penetrates everything, the story flowed smoothly like a river of emotions, still yet deep, quiet yet somehow overwhelming.

I like how Sumire loves. Agreed, she’s a lesbian. But her love is so pure, so strong, so brave, so passionate. She follows her heart till the end, goes with the flow, even when it means that she has to step into another world that she knows nothing about, even when it means that she has to be gone forever in this world. As if that love was a tornado, sweeping her away and making her vanish. Like smoke. Like smoke.

But above all, the deepest impression that Sputnik Sweetheart left in me is the loneliness. The sense of longing and solitude are just so strong. All of its characters have this special intense yearning for each other, yet each of them is still isolated. All alone. Like a satellite, following its own orbit in this vast university.

Seems like Haruki’s got some kind of obsession with loneliness (or is it just my feeling?). Personally I guess that's the reason why he likes the image of wells. The idea of being in the deep darkness, totally isolated from the outside world, exhausted from crying and shouting hopelessly. It's the worst kind of loneliness.

All in all, the prose is simple yet elegant, quiet yet emotional. The characters are lively and compelling (at least to me). A sweet and lovely book. But I just wish that there were no "surrealism" part. Totally enjoyed it until the creepy part when Miu saw erm, herself? :| :| :|

Today I went to sign the new broadband contract with my housemates. When we were asked to think of an user ID, my housemates told me to choose: "just put anything, not important". I wrote "Sputnik", and that just freaked the hell out of my dear housemates. "WTH, so lame, so nerdy" were their reactions but I didn't care (I could read the thoughts from their look "Silly us, why did we let this weirdo get to choose?! ").

Anw, I just love the sound of it.

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

(...)

I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of sputnik, even now circling the earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. 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.

No promises to keep.

PS: to whom it may concern (especially you, Hui Jun)... I'm totally fine and NOT emo :)) you don't have to SMS me at midnight to ask me why and how and what and so on :))