'Sputnik Sweetheart' Summary of the book
The first 70 pages or so of "Sputnik Sweetheart" construct this romantic triangle: He loves Sumire, Sumire loves Miu and whatever goes on in Miu's head is anyone's guess. Then Miu takes Sumire with her on a trip to Europe, and while the two women vacation on a Greek island, Sumire vanishes without a trace. Miu asks the narrator to fly out to the island and help with the search. Once there, he finds a handful of tantalizing clues: an odd conversation Miu and Sumire had about a spooked cat, a diary that Sumire kept on a floppy disk in which she writes of "entering the world of dreams and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time," and, strangest of all, Sumire's transcript of a secret Miu told her, the story of how Miu's black hair turned entirely white during a single night in a little Swiss town.
Murakami knows that the most haunting tales never have all their loose ends tied up by the last page, but unlike "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," "Sputnik Sweetheart" doesn't leave too many of them unspooled and dangling. It's a tighter book, if less grand and captivating, and the point of this exercise in the uncanny feels more focused. "Why do people have to be this lonely?" the narrator asks:
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.
Back in Japan, there will be a significant moment with a kleptomaniac child and a few more surprising encounters, but the lovely, sad, eerie Murakami spell remains firmly in place, the sense of its perfectly still center inviolate. It's still impossible to nail down, but its ingredients include loneliness, longing and an undeniable and sometimes frightening thread of the miraculous woven into the very fabric of life. (salon.com)