Dance Dance Dance

Traveling and teaching this week at the National Housing Training Institute so I doubt I will have ANY time for reading or listening to books.  The schedule is GRUELING.  7am – 10pm, so I’ll try and pick up more reading next week and will give an update of sorts on my experience when I return to the blog! Now the book I read….  I have become a fan of Haruki Murakami, reading my fourth by the author, this one Dance Dance Dance.  Murakami mixes dream state/fantasy/mystery murder in this very complex story that reads relatively fast.  I couldn’t put the book down as the character development was strong as was the mystery behind the Dolphin Hotel, a place that the protagonist (we never get his name!) used to frequent as a brothel of sorts but learns that the Hotel is now a high-end Hotel minus the paid female companion, KiKi.  The protagonist is a mid-thirties Japanese magazine journalist.  He is led to the Dolphin Hotel by something that draws him back to find out about Kiki.  The journey introduces him to a female front-desk receptionist, a 13 year old, and a former high school buddy who is now a well-known commercial television star.    The protagonist is confronted with disappearances and the deaths of a few of the people he interacts with.  The story ends with a twist that is unnerving and haunting.  Murakami writes a “tight” story that engages the reader and provides a surreal backdrop where sex, love, intuition, and pain go deep in the lives of the characters.  I really couldn’t put this one down.  It reminded me of where our friend Holden Caulfield could have been 20 years after his experience.  The protagonist finds true love not in marriage but in a woman he paid for sex and holds on to something that was not real.  Secondary themes include abandonment, loss, and searching for the past even when you know it can’t be reclaimed.  Not going to provide a great deal of detail on the plot and the characters as I don’t want to give too much away. I would add this one to the list.  Murakami’s star hits new heights with me in this book.