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Underground and Sputnik Sweetheart

Haruki Murakami writes where normal meets the extraordinary

By Ian Chun

One of the most important contemporary writers in Japan is making quite a name for himself in the U.S., with two more books to add to his six novels, and one collection of short stories already published in English. Underground is Haruki Murakami’s first attempt at non-fiction, combining two insightful books published in 1997 and 1998 in Japan. Sputnik Sweetheart is his poignant seventh novel.

On March 20, 1995, leading members of the cult, Aum Shinriky, carried out a vicious act of terrorism in Tokyo. Just after 8 a.m., in the middle of the morning rush hour, packets of a deadly chemical agent called sarin were punctured in five crowded subway cars. As the sarin evaporated, it became a deadly gas inhaled by thousands, seriously injuring hundreds, and excruciatingly killing 12 innocent, unsuspecting commuters and station attendants.

But what exactly happened that morning? What exactly did these victims see, hear, or smell? How did they react? And, what was Aum Shinriky? Why did they commit such a horrendous crime?

Armed with these questions, Murakami has interviewed 60 victims and their families, as well as eight current and former Aum Shinriky members. He skillfully reworks the interviews of the victims into short narratives that read as if the victims themselves had written them. Nevertheless, Murakami’s narrative voice echoes throughout this piece of oral history. His cool attention to detail, and the collision between the ordinary and extraordinary pervade these stories.

Murakami appears occasionally to ask a question or two of the victims, but by and large, he remains in the background recording. Only once does the author himself get involved — visiting the hospital two years after the attack, he meets one “Shizuko Akashi.” Her plight is heart-wrenching, and one cannot help feeling a twisted knot of intense emotion as we accompany Murakami to interview her. She is a 31-year-old woman whose mind has been reduced to “about grade-school level,” according to doctors.

“She cannot eat or drink through her mouth,” Murakami writes. “She cannot yet move her tongue or jaws. Ordinarily we never notice how our tongue and jaws perform complicated maneuvers whenever we eat or drink, wholly unconsciously. Only when we lose these functions do we become acutely aware of their importance. That is Shizuko’s situation right now.”

The second part of Underground, entitled “The Place That Was Promised,” contains Murakami’s interviews with members and former members of the cult. They are quite a contrast from the simple and emotional narratives given by the victims. Murakami interviewed “rank-and-file” members of the cult, many of whom are just coming to accept that the group they had believed in whole-heartedly would actually condone such a horrible act of violence. These people, too, had their worlds violently shaken — by the insensitivity of the police and media, and by the revelation that their leader was capable of such an atrocity. Some who have left are openly critical of the cult, while those who remain question its basic foundations. Overwhelmingly, what Murakami seeks to portray is not a group of thousands of murderous fanatics, but ordinary people who just don’t fit into contemporary society.

Murakami is much more conversational in the second section of the book, often interrupting the interviewee’s narrative to challenge their explanations of Aum doctrine and experience. However, he does seem to want to present their views without bias. In doing so, Murakami creates a link between the members of Aum and the victims — their exploitation by the media. He creates a voice with which both can speak out. Underground looks past the labels of victim and cult member given by society.

Sputnik Sweetheart takes this lesson and creates an impressive story of unrequited love between a young teacher, an older woman, and an aspiring writer who just can’t find her own voice. If you loved Norwegian Wood, you’ll certainly love this novel. The premise is deceptively simple: in college, the protagonist meets an aspiring writer, Sumire, who is so wrapped up in her fragmentary, fictional worlds, she hardly has time to eat, much less meet friends. He is her only friend, and has fallen in love. However, Sumire feels no passion for him or anyone else until she meets an older, much more sophisticated businesswoman. The unsuspecting older woman, Miu, hires Sumire as an assistant, and together they travel through Europe sampling wine for import. Then, on a small Greek island, Sumire disappears …

Murakami’s fiction is deliberately baffling, and Sputnik Sweetheart is as much a mystery as romance. As the teacher takes time off to help with the investigation, certain things are revealed about Sumire.

A stillness pervades Murakami’s writing. None of the characters are perfectly ordinary — they all have something different about them. Yet, they lead conventional lives that, like the voices of Underground, collide with out-of-the-ordinary events.

Unlike Underground, however, Sputnik Sweetheart resonates somewhere below the conscious level, where the logical unravels and the comprehensible becomes some “far-off music, barely audible,” lying in the darkness beyond. Whether readers are out for the romance, the mystery, or simply to breathe out a well-needed sigh, they are sure to enjoy the simple passage of the lives of its characters.