Book Review : Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

Pages :  250

Read on : Kindle

Goodreads Rating : 3.82/5

Review:  All the wonderful things in life are often obscure. We try our best to disintegrate them into little meanings that would or could make sense to our lives not realising that such things are best admired when left as is. 

I compare Murakami's work to this theory. May be it was the timing in my life that made Sputnik Sweetheart hit the soft spot and every page was like lyrics to a background melody of an episode that was detailed but got over way too quickly. 

The whole book is rather small and feels like poetry, with the delicate balance of reality and magic that laces the plot so perfectly. The descriptions of the characters emotions are well reflected by the atmosphere around them, the time of the day and other inanimate objects that are within their parameters. 

We don't always make the smartest choices with the people we hold most dear to us and our actions towards there are clunky even though in essence they were/are good intentions. Sumire is puzzling and nothing short of an interesting study, someone I would observe from a distance with minimal words exchanged. Miu is as charismatic to me as she is to Sumire and I'm sure her grace would intrigue a cat-like interest in me, where I would just move around her feet and gaze at her wide-eyed. K, our narrator is who sets the mood of the whole ordeal. There's a slight wiff of pity for him and the gentle, bruised pain from his unrequited love that he harbours so deep. 

The three of them are bound by baffling circumstances. The three of them love so desperately. And lose so painfully. It feels like waiting at a train station with all the trains whizzing past and K is stagnant.  

By saying goodbye to Mui, K knew that it would mean that everything was lost, over and he had to accept it regardless. Seeing Mui's face for the last time is what hurt most because it reflected everything that was gone. This was most definitely a part of the book I cherish with all the feels. I'm not going to ruin it for you by telling you what happens next but it's exactly what one would do in real life. Being able to capture all those sentiments and actions in such a small book is a feat and Murakami has to be applauded for that. (A Noble prize would be nice).

I hold this book close to my heart and will look forward to revisiting it with the same feeling when I'm old.

Final Rating : 5/5

خُدا حافِظ

Splatter Days

Paintings by Mehreen Shaikh

Sometimes I just crave a blank canvas to spill out everything that's bottled up in me. Like a gush of paints and ink splatter. In no order or any sense, yet hoping you will read off your screens and nod your head,barely able to understand what I'm trying to say and still be able to say to me telepathically, 'Hey, it's okay, we all have our days'. Splatter days I want to call them.

    

It's like waiting, endlessly for something you have no idea about. Like waiting at a curb looking for cars to pass by or in a hospital corridor at 3 AM with just the breeze of doors being pushed around. You don't see anyone and it gets quiet again. You try to hear something familiar to you or something that holds a faint meaning. But instead, all you see is blank spaces. So blank, they make you feel all eerie inside. You see random people occasionally who've seen and dealt with the situation themselves or could be battling their own inner demons, handing you obscure advice. More splatter. You think you don't need that advice till one day it all begins to resonate. Can you still call it a painting if it isn't complete? Will it ever be complete?

I see mimes with all the upside down smiles, shaking their heads. No. They pat my head, trying to console me. There, There. They don't convey anything more than that. They can't. There is nothing left to be addressed. They know it's my journey and I'm on my own.

I take a few steps ahead in the name of moving on. For the sake of moving on. Let's try to collect more splatter - I can't help look back again and again as I go forth. I move ahead a few steps more till I can actually walk by myself..... steady.......steady.......I look back lesser now.......but I still look. Hoping the deeply missed splatter shade will bloom on my canvas some day.

خُدا حافِظ