Book Group Meeting 15 March 2010

Book read was: Haruki Murakami's 'Dance Dance Dance'
I was hosting, so it's my turn to write up what we all thought of it.

Generally the book was well received, although as is our want, there were some who hadn't enjoyed it at all as it didn't really end up explaining all the questions raised by the plot and tying up all the loose ends.

We were a bit surprised - those of us who'd actually gone to the trouble to find out - that this was the second book in a series, and most of us felt that we might have been in a bit of a better position to understand some of the plotlines if we'd read the first book first. The first one was 'A Wild Sheep Chase' in case you're wondering.

Some of us had been introduced to the author through his book 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running' which we'd loved for its poetic language.

The dream sequences and altered realities in the book were intriguing, we were interested to know how some of the translations had led to slurred together English words (from the Sheep Man) - how had these been represented in the original Japanese?

The characters were well drawn, and the relationship between the narrator who is a 34-year old male and one of the characters, a 13 year old girl was edgy and disturbing, but we felt that it gave an accurate picture of how difficult a relationship between two such people would be. The fact that the 13-year old was physic and explained some of the horrors of the book to the narrator added another interesting twist.

We're still intrigued to know how the choreography symbols in the book relate to the narrative, for example the lines drawn around the chapter headings and the footsteps which pepper the narrative.

The fact that the narrator took his time and let events unfold around him was felt to be an endearing quality and despite the horrors described at times in the book, it never descended into ugliness.

All in all an interesting book, although not one which was universally popular with the group. I'm not sure I've represented our discussions accurately, but no doubt someone will correct me if I've missed anything major, and then I can edit this post.