Sputnik Sweetheart

I finished reading Sputnik Sweetheart—my fourth Murakami after Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, and Men without Women—a few days back. The next one on my list is his latest fiction Killing Commendatore, which I’ll hopefully start soon. The more I read this man, the more I am falling in love with his words. I’m reading translations, of course; still, his writings are sheer magic. I think I’ll read all his works, although it might take several years going by my reading speed. Anyway, I found some of the paragraphs from Sputnik Sweetheart very relatable which I’m sharing here.

“When I was young I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with. I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer. I didn’t easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music. As you might guess, I led a lonely life.”

“I hardly ever had a heart-to-heart conversation with my family. We lived together under one roof, but my parents and sister were like strangers to me, and I had no idea what they wanted from life. And the same held true for them—they didn’t have any idea what kind of person I was or what I aspired to. Not that I knew what I wanted in life—I didn’t. I loved reading novels to distraction, but didn’t write well enough to be a novelist; being an editor or a critic was out, too, since my tastes ran to extremes.”