re:mote voices: literature

Title: Dance Dance Dance
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Panther

I've picked this up a few times, the modern design work and the fact that the translation is recent threw me. Apparently this guy is really popular in Japan, but for some reason it has still taken years for his work to be translated - so this was written in 88 and published in English about 10 years later. The fact that it is then set in 1983 threw me even more. But other than the music references the work remains considerably contemporary I believe, especially with the main characters rants about corporate domination of markets, seems very now....

Dance Dance Dance is a bit of an odd book, though maybe not as odd as the back of the book might suggest? Anyway, the main character, who is unnamed, visited the dolphin hotel with a girlfriend four years ago. Though they had been going out for a couple of months he never knew her name, and while staying in this hotel she just left him and he hasn't seen her since. But for some time now the hotel has been visiting him in his dreams and he feels compelled to go back - with the feeling that if he doesn't he will never resolve his issues being a strong one. However, when he turns up the grubby, little hotel that was there, it has been replaced by a massive, luxury hotel. In his attempts to discover what happened to the old hotel and solve his mysteries he befriends one of the girls behind the front desk - who has had a strange experience. It seems that this architectural, monolith is haunted by the old hotel, the girl having experienced this in a distressing fashion. Things aren't going to plan, and while killing time in this city he goes to see a film, one which stars a man he went to school with. Much to his shock there is a scene with his school friend and the woman who led him to the original Dolphin hotel.

With this he heads back to Tokyo, but is asked to escort a 13 year old girl back as well by the hotel girl he knows. As he befriends the young girl it seems that she has some form of psychic power, that adds to the mystery and his own strange experiences in the hotel. Back in Tokyo he manages to get back in touch with his old school friend who is now famous, and learn more about the woman that he is looking for.

On the whole Dance Dance Dance is about how the character interacts with the other characters, the bigger picture being of less real importance, more of a driving tool than the core. Yuki is the daughter of a famous photographer and writer, her parents are divorced and her mother is always leaving her. Because of her psychic senses she has been marked out at school and doesn't fit in, so spends most of her time alone listening to pop music. While she is difficult and awkward to some degree the fact that the main character is willing to give her time and pay her attention is a big deal for her. In some ways there is a sense of the Lolita to this relationship, though in reality the guys intentions are honourable. Gotanda has always been handsome, popular and intelligent, he could have been anything, but fell in to acting. He has become famous, but is stuck in a rut of playing nice guys, always a teacher or doctor or dentist - nothing challenging, nothing interesting. His wife has left him and taken all his money, leaving him in crushing debt, yet the studios demand he lives a certain lifestyle so they fund a life of false luxury. Suddenly having someone he was at school around him again allows him someone he can really talk to, giving him the feeling that maybe he can take his life back. Yumiyoshi the hotel girl is someone the main character is very attracted to, and as their relationship develops he feels she could be the one that brings an end to his cycle of non-relationships that he has been living with since he split from his own wife.

Saying that Dance Dance Dance is about characters and their lives of parental neglect, spoilt wealth, departed wives and the like may make it sound mundane but instead there is something compelling about this novel.
The narrative and the mystery that is present drives the reader on, the interaction between the character and his outlook on live being considered and appealing. Along with the babysitting, nostalgia and potential for new love there is more to this strange cast. There is still the issue of the missing girl that knows both men, a high priced call girl with a habit of vanishing when she feels like it. The photographers latest boyfriend, a one armed beach poet. A murder that sees our hero run around by the police. Then there is the other, the things which are less easy to explain, the weirdness on top of weirdness. The sheep man who resides in the spaces between the old hotel and the new, a guide to the narrator. A room with six skeletons, representing the deaths of people we come in to contact with, bodies counted off through the book. Then there are the senses that Yuki gets which are unnervingly accurate and have their own effect on the course of the book. And weirdest of all - there are two occasions where things are said which seem deeply significant, and seem to have come from nowhere that catch the attentive reader, but in the end are part of this mystery which appear to remain unanswered.

RVWR: PTR
July 2002