{"id":15784,"date":"2011-11-16T12:12:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T17:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=15784"},"modified":"2014-12-14T09:52:43","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T14:52:43","slug":"dance-dance-dance-by-haruki-murakami-translated-by-alfred-birnbaum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/dance-dance-dance-by-haruki-murakami-translated-by-alfred-birnbaum\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dance<\/a>Life just seems better with a Haruki Murakami<\/a> story stuck in my ears … being aurally enticed into\u00a0the fantabulous absurdity of Murakami’s imagined worlds\u00a0provides a little instant escape from the sometimes same-old, same-old of my own reality! I do admit to a preference for the animated narrator Rupert Degas (who has thus far read me this, A Wild Sheep Chase<\/a><\/em>, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle<\/a><\/em>, and select stories from The Elephant Vanishes<\/a><\/em>), even if he does mispronounce far too many of the Japanese words and names … really, how hard can it be to make one<\/em>\u00a0phone call to a Japanese speaker and get a quickie pronunciation lesson? ACK! Don’t get me started!<\/p>\n

Back to Dance<\/em>-ing … and some quick housekeeping details here. Dance<\/em>\u00a0is the fourth book starring our (still-) unnamed protagonist. Even though Dance<\/em>\u00a0is considered the sequel to\u00a0A Wild Sheep Chase<\/em>, it’s not officially part of the\u00a0“Trilogy of the Rat” which includes two prequels (Hear the Wind Sing<\/a><\/em> and Pinball, 1973<\/a><\/em>) and Sheep<\/em>. And yes, both Sheep<\/em>\u00a0and Dance<\/em>\u00a0work as standalone titles, although if you read Sheep <\/em>first, you’re likely to enjoy Dance <\/em>more. The jury is still out about the two prequels\u00a0but I do possess those titles now and have every intention of reading, so stay tuned for future posts.<\/p>\n

Picking up about four-and-a-half years after the events of Sheep<\/em>, our Tokyo-based narrator is drawn back to the same Dolphin Hotel, convinced that his ex-girlfriend\u00a0\u2013 she with the amazing ears who deserted him near the end of their Sapporo chase\u00a0\u2013 is calling from another world for his help. When he arrives, he’s shocked to find a modern, overpriced luxury establishment rather than the ramshackle original. Making inquiries as to the former Dolphin and its owners leads our narrator on yet another Sheepman-chase, this time of magnified proportions that will take our odd-but-mostly good guy across the ocean to a Honolulu office filled with skeletons …<\/p>\n

This time, his co-horts include a part-time aquatic hotel receptionist, a 13-year-old girl unexpectedly entrusted to his care, her incredibly neglectful parents \u2013 a world-famous genius photographer mother and a bestselling-though-talentless-novelist father who happens to have the name\u00a0Hiraku Makimura (recognize those mixed-up letters? Murakami sure knows how to laugh at himself!), and a childhood friend who is now a major movie star.<\/p>\n

Being on a Murakami binge, I’m having great fun noting some his favorite literary devices: tiny details as Seven Stars cigarettes, endless bottles of Cutty Sark, and toothsome plates of spaghetti, to his wackier penchant for cats, neglected teenage girls with extraordinary powers of perception, walking through walls, navigating pitch-black hallways, dry wells, and of course, the moon. Alas, the ending here didn’t quite do it for me (no spoilers), but that proves a minor detail, as any Murakami adventure is always an unforgettable, escapist, addictive wild ride!<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 1994 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life just seems better with a Haruki Murakami story stuck in my ears … being aurally enticed into\u00a0the fantabulous absurdity of Murakami’s imagined worlds\u00a0provides a little instant escape from the sometimes same-old, same-old of my own reality! I do admit to a preference for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,6,76,66],"tags":[1191,6608,2356,75,10,11,1193,242,13,129,212,216,39,795,42,5712,6105],"class_list":["post-15784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-fiction","category-japanese","category-translation","tag-alfred-birnbaum","tag-bookdragon","tag-dance-dance-dance","tag-death","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-haruki-murakami","tag-horror-ghost-story","tag-love","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-murder","tag-mystery","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-rupert-degas","tag-series","tag-series-a-wild-sheep-chase","tag-series-trilogy-of-the-rat"],"yoast_head":"\nDance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/dance-dance-dance-by-haruki-murakami-translated-by-alfred-birnbaum\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Life just seems better with a Haruki Murakami story stuck in my ears … being aurally enticed into\u00a0the fantabulous absurdity of Murakami’s imagined worlds\u00a0provides a little instant escape from the sometimes same-old, same-old of my own reality! 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