Good Afternoon world! Or whatever time it is, from where you are reading this.
Last night, I finished a Murakami novel- Sputnik Sweetheart. The first thing I wanted to do when I finished this book was stand on top of a roof of some city building, the rain pouring down and wetting every single part of my flesh. Hair dripping, eyes constantly blinking through the water and scream as loud and as long as my lungs would allow me.
"I AM ALIVE!"
Considering it was half eleven at night, I had to work in the morning and I live in a town with buildings that are not quite city material. I just settled for rolling onto my back and stretch out my limbs, as I gaze up at the ceiling of my bedroom where my bedside table lamp keeps one corner of the room safe from the darkness that has swept through to the other corners. Lifting my fingers into the air, I admired the blood pumping through my veins and each breath I took, to prove that I am alive and was living in the reality of there and then and not in a dream like state.
When I finished this book, I felt a deep philosophical moment, that had me thinking and generally writing until the early hours of the morning.
It had my brain go into haywire, I had so much to write down from my head but I couldn't find the words to describe what I was thinking. Images also started waltzing into my mind as I was forming scenes from my past dreams/daydreams and new scenes that my mind wanted to display. When they are just flying past, none of it made any sense, but I needed to write it all down before I would forget.
When I finished this book, without giving away any spoilers, to the nation who hasn't read Murakami work yet, to the nation who are not much of a reader or to the nation who is just searching for a book to read and is hoping that what I have got to say about this book will encourage them to give it ago (I would like to point out, that this is a two hundred page book, its a breeze!).
Ok, I made a point in this review, where I actually want to write so much about the book and give away so much. So what I am going to do is give you the synopsis.
Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel.
Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire.
Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished...
K is in love with Sumire, Sumire loves someone else. The typical love triangle it sounds right, until Sumire disappears. My view is that, I felt that K was in love with a fictional character, he was so lonely and so isolated from the world that when he found that one true friendship within Sumire, he was bound to fall hopelessly in love with this character. To all the obsessed readers out there, this is me included, you know what I am talking about. You feel isolated from the 'real' (lets put quotation marks on that Real word for a minute) world, your lonely and struggling or you don't have the confidence to speak out, to make new friends, to enjoy social human interaction. That delving into a fictional book and leaving reality for a few hours a day helps you forget, who you are and makes you fall emotionally towards fictional characters, because you are journeying with them as you go along in the book. Am I making sense to you so far on my opinion of this book?
So, like all great stories there will always be an end. In this case Sumire disappearance. What do you do when finish a great book, where you have felt so emotionally involved with the fictional character? What did I do? Well, a clue. After finishing Harry Potter, I kind of went into a mindless auto-pilot mode of going to school and coming back home and watching mindless TV. It took me about a week or so to come out of that mode and to enter the 'real' world again.
Now you see my point with the book, K comes to the end of the fictional being and loses his friendship, so what is there left for him to do? To move on and build a more stable surrounding within the reality and within the surrounding people. To separate the dreams, books to what is 'real'.
As I read Murakami words, I fell deeper and deeper into his fictional world that I could feel myself starting to fade. Like all 20 something years old, you are still trying to find yourself, but reading experiences, being involved within the experiences helps you define who you are, what you wish to become. When I reached this quote in the book, I snapped out of it.
If people aren't equal, where would you fit in?
This line, struck me blank. A mind blanking moment, a book dropping moment. A thought struck me, how can one be treated equal, if they isolate themselves in their books and getting emotionally involved with the fictional character? How can someone be treated equal, if they do not express themselves in their own personal way? Getting their own point of view across or speaking their own mind? Some people can really be prejudice against other people, but it is their animal instinct. If a person cannot express their individuality or speak out, getting out there in the
reality of the world, how can that person be treated as an equal?
That is one thing, I will be taking away with me from this book. It's nothing to do with being in love or feeling strong emotions towards another object or person. But to be myself in this real world, to speak my mind, in my voice and mine alone. Not isolate myself from the real world, but to share my world with people who wants to view it.
It's a mess at the moment, but it will be organised.
I think I might be a little hooked and possibly found some form shopping for my winter wardrobe. I just need a pay day! 
