Intrigued, I read up more on the story and found it was from a collection of Haruki Murakami’s tales entitled “The Elephant Vanishes”. When I heard a reading of another fantastical story from the book called “The Little Green Monster” (a surreal story of a woman, who, when stalked by a loving creature in her yard, fights back with picturesque descriptions of her killing him), I realized how quirky and eccentric his writing could really be!
I made a note to myself to seek out The Elephant Vanishes, but happened to come upon one of Murakami’s earlier works instead, a book entitled “Dance, Dance, Dance”, and
reading just the first page of this tale of a man obsessed with revisiting a
place called the Dolphin Hotel because he has dreams of a voice calling him
back, instantly captivated me and I knew I had to read this one first!
Years Ago, the man (an un-named character)
had gone to the hotel with a call girl named Kiki (at least, this is the name
she gives him). His memories of the place are of a beaten down, drab and
altogether shabby hotel, yet dreams of the place mesmerize him, and a voice
calling out to him makes him realize he’ll never sleep again until he goes back
to visit the place.
He makes plans to go revisit the hotel, but when he does, he is shocked
to find the entire business has been replaced with a rich, glitzy (and yet
altogether shady) establishment. When asking a pretty bespectacled
receptionist what happened to the old place (and its owners), he is met with
unfriendly and standoffish reaction.
Things get
even stranger when the receptionist confides in him that she has experienced things of a supernatural
nature and feels it’s connected to the old hotel…and why no one seems to want
to talk about it.
As he researches more, he finds that there is a lot more
going on than what appears on he surface- besides the ghostly elements, there is
a definite feel of mob force and political corruption motivating the players.
As the Man explores more. he crosses paths with a handful of new and interesting characters- from a former classmate turned movie star named Gotanda to a precocious 13 year old girl named Yuki (easily my favorite character in the book), and the more he looks, the more he finds himself getting deeper and deeper into the murky mystery.
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| A perfect depiction of Yuki! (from Streetbjorn.com) |
Right Now I'm about halfway through the book, and things are getting more complex- with new characters entering in and out of his life, to airplane jumping trips to the Dolphin Hotel to back home, and even a stint in Hawaii, so far a very eccentric yet captivating tale!
PS: Whoa, that Kenichi Matsuyama/Rinko Kikuchi movie
“Norwegian Wood” is based on a Haruki Murakami book? Gee, when I saw it posted,
I figured it was a generic romance story, but if it’s anything like his other
works, Hell, I’d better go find that one and check it out!
PPS: Reading more, I’m finding out that Norwegian Wood is
actually Haruki Murakami’s most famous work, talk about me coming late to the
party…ah well, it’s always exciting to discover something new and I guess we
can’t all be there from the beginning, LOL
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
