Rating: 
Summary: I've said it once, I'll say it again: Murakami is a GENIUS
Review: I finally found out why I love Murakami. Bear with me, because I'm still molding this idea... Murakami's protaganists are, for the most, not the typical Japanese sterotype. They don't work, or they little, or they work sporadically. They rarely follow tradition. They steep themselves in Western culture, trying to become Western. They reject their Eastern mindset without ever rejecting the East. They stay fundementally Japanese, no matter how hard they try to push away from that life. I think that many Americans feel this same way (flip-flopped, obviously). How many Westerners have become Buddhists? How many steep themselves in the insane culture of modern japan (wether it be Anime, video games, J-pop, whatever)? How many long for the East and reject the West without ever leaving the mindset? Many. I'm one. Murakami's books are the perfect relic of modern life. In our interconnected world (connected by Wind-up Birds and Sheep Men alike), cultural identity is something we long to shrugh off. Yet we can't. We dance in a never-ending sprial of life. Dance Dance Dance is just as good as Wind-up Bird. Unlike Wild Sheep Chase, it does not have that brevity, almost short story quality that marred A Wild Sheep Chase for me (which isn't to say I didn't like it..just the opposite, it is certainly one of my favorite books, just not on par with Dance or Wind-up Bird). There are certain things we need to forgive Murakami for though. He certainly has a stock leading man. But so did Hemmingway, and no one is cursing him for it. The Hemmingway-Hero is a legit archetype now. Murakami repeatedly uses the same themes and motifs throughout his work. Well, so what? What great author hasn't? Pynchon and Dellio consistently do, but no one questions their ranking amongst the great writers. Murakami is a great writer, of incredible depth and insight. He is one fo the greatest treasures of the International literature scene, and there is no reason whatsoever that we should question his validity as a writer of genius Literate Fiction with a capital LF.
Rating:
Summary: Murakami's Unsurpassed Best Novel
Review: Far superior to its successor, the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, this book wonderfully concludes the story of a protagonist started with "Hear The Wind Sing," "Pinball 1973," and "A Wild Sheep Chase." In this book, the protagonist, a self-employed loner who lives outside the "normal" conventions of the Japanese salaryman and society, sets out on a quest to find his girlfriend from "A Wild Sheep Chase." (For those who have not read "A Wild Sheep Chase," I will not ruin for you the circumstances that set this off). For the first few chapters, the protagonist is alone, walking the streets of Hokkaido, sitting in bars by himself and "contemplating the ashtray" (there must be tons of loners out there who can appreciate this) until eventually clues, both supernatural and other, take him to Tokyo and Hawaii, and introduce a slew of unforgettable, well written, deep characters. Such characters include Yuki, the troubled 13 year old psychic who is far superior to the undeveloped clone of May Kasahara in the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, the actor Gotanda, who can portray your life better than you can, the unforgettable detectives Bookish and Fisherman...the list goes on and on. What this book is, basically, is the fulfillment of the personal quest. It is a book that will be best appreciated by people who have been loners, stand removed from the "norms" of society of a wife, a 9 to 5 job in an impersonal office, two kids, a pet, and perhaps even a dedication to any particular religion, and have, as such, culivated a deep level of observation, a bit of an alienation to and from society, and perhaps a personal subconscious inkling/longing for a supernatural happenstance such as The Dolphin Hotel that make up for a lack of belief in any conventional religious notion accepted by the masses...
Rating:
Summary: Read this 11 times and counting!
Review: I've read everything of Haruki Murakami's in both English and Japanese, and let me say, this is the best of them all. First of all, let me say to all the dummies who praise "Wind Up Bird" as the best: This book came first! Wind up bird repeats the missing woman, and the teenage girl, and doesn't make either as interesting as in Dance. May Kasahara is no Yuki, and Okada's wife is no Kiki. All "Wind Up" does is fulfill Murakami's fetish with wells. Yes, wind up has some interesting characters like the Kano sisters, but they're dropped a third through the book! So what if he wrote a good section on Boris the Manskinner et al...that again was the author just fulfilling a need to write something along a historical line, but it had nothing to do with the main plot. It should have been in its own book. Nothing in "Wind Up" got tied up in even a tiny little bit. Now, "Dance Dance Dance" on the other hand comes full circle. It starts with the Dolphin Hotel...and it ends there. All the characters are extremely rich...Yuki, her spaced out genius mother Ame, even Dick North. And never, ever did Murakami have such a fantastic character as Gotanda the actor who was just too "perfect." The detectives Bookish and Fisherman also deserve kudos. It is only in "Dance Dance Dance" that we see the lonely protagonist on his path towards his mysterious goal done at its most fulfilling. And a final word to all you untrue fans of Murakami who put this book down for "Wind Up", I bet you had no idea that in the native Japanese, the sheep man's lines are not strung together, they're written in regular, normal Japanese sentences. Didn't know that, did you?? I bet you also didn't know that the Japanese version has a whole chapter not translated into the English version! So who's the real Murakami fan? I am! All of you other "Wind up is the best" mindless drones, go read Danielle Steel...that's where you belong!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not quite "Wind Up Bird"
Review: Dance Dance Dance has similar plot elements to "Wind Up Bird Chronicle" yet makes for a much lighter read. The simpler plot ultimately makes the story less compelling though not necessarily less enjoyable. If anything the similarities in the plot accentuate Murakami's versatility as a writer who can shed new light on the mundane. Definitely a fun page-turner!
Rating: 
Summary: Dance out & buy this book
Review: I couldn't get out of the bathtub until i finished this book! It's so engrossing, although you might not find that until you've realized you're deep inside a contemporary Tokyo mystery story. It's so engrossing that I accidentally found myself reading at the dinner table at Tony Roma's instead of talking to my boyfriend. However, if you get THAT excited over Murakami, just read aloud b/c you'll be spreading the word, and it's definitely worth sharing. In fact, my boyfriend thought the description of the Dolphin Hotel in the opening pages was brilliant. It's not any one thing that distinguishes this novel, but it's unique all the same. The narrator has an almost fetishistic mode of observation. He constantly undermines himself and his status by describing those around him in larger-than-life terms and delineating their various incredible qualities. but by the end of the novel, you realize that the one who comes out intact is our very own, humble and unhip narrator. And what a relief that is after all the close calls we experience vicariously through him! Dance Dance Dance is a paradoxical novel b/c it's both lighthearted and very easy to read while also raising and considering deep epistemological questions. I loved that combination, and it made the book both comic and also heartbreaking, a nice duality in these times.
Rating:
Summary: Absurd fantasy
Review: Rarely does a book leave me scratching my head and wondering if i read everything correctly. I loved this novel with its absurd fantasy story and characters. It made me wonder if people like this really exist or we have to make them up. A friend had told me about the book and hadn't quite "gotten" what it was about. But the writing flows and before i knew it, i had finished it. Maybe its time to read it again. I highly recommend it for someone that is looking for a different kind of book to read.
Rating:
Summary: Dancing through hyperspace
Review: A sheep-man sits in a hotel room and operates a switchboard connecting the lonely, drifting narrator to a web of unforgottable individuals. The sheep-man's room is full of books about, well, sheep, and the narrator mostly experiences reality with the aid of his thirteen-year-old sort-of girlfriend. Logs of days spent "lolling" on the beach, wonderful descriptions of pizza, allusions to Boy George and the Talking Heads, and the sense of frantically trying to escape something (or is it find something?) all combine to make a novel that is not plotted, but choreographed. Dance Dance Dance is electrifying, captivating, and intense -- and it's pretty brainy too, much like Murakami's characters. The narrator's perspective is standard Murakami: the slightly dreamy, out-of-place 30ish man trying to reason with a world that seems stranger by the minute. Assumptions constantly fall, and no one is sure what or whom to believe. Yet the strange-goings on are the only thing rescuing the narrator from the miasma of ennui that comes from having rejected the dream of being a "salaryman" with a family and a linear, predictable lifestyle. This is a novel about staring out into the unknown -- and staring deeply into that unknown, it seems Murakami is saying, is the only way to find meaning if we reject the traditional lives that have been prearranged for us. The only slightly negative thing I can say about this novel is that the plot and the characters have uncanny similarities to those in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. It almost seems as if Murakami had one outline of a novel, which could go two different ways, and made one into the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and the other into this book. The narrator's voice, and many of the supporting characters, are exactly the same, as are several plot elements. Overall, this is significant, and highly enjoyable literature. It manages to ask deep questions about reality, fate, relationships, family, and life, while still packing the thrills of something much more pulpish.
Rating:
Summary: watch out for gray gorillas with sledge hammers. . .
Review: This was the second time that I have read this book. The first time I read this book i read something like 10 books in between reading it and A Wild Sheep Chase. This time I read it right after A Wild Sheep Chase, and i found the book to be more enjoyable.
The book is about the unnamed narrator of A Wild Sheep Chase. Something like four years have passed since he has talked to his dead friend the Rat and the disappearance of his girlfriend. We find the narrator living day to day shoveling cultural snow. He dreams of the Dolphin hotel and soon returns there, but finds the place a massive, beautiful expensive hotel. Not the run down sheep research haven that it had once been. He meets a pretty employee there named Yumiyoshi and soon strikes up an odd relationship with her. She tells him of a night when she went to the 16th floor and she ends up in a dark hallway. She walks down the hallway and sees a light underneath a door. She knocks, but soon runs when she becomes unnerved at the sound of foot prints. The Narrator winfds up on the dank, chill hidden hallway himself and runs into the Sheep Man. The Sheep Man tells him that he has been waiting for him a long time. The Sheep Man then tells the Narreator that he needs to find himself, and what an adventure he has. He meets a movie star, a washed up writer, a spaced out photographer, and a beautiful psychic girl. Wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: A hair less enjoyable than Wild Sheep Chase
Review: Not quite as immersive as before, but worthy nonetheless. Murakami's literary love lives are as strange as they come. In a vain search to find a glimpse of a woman he'd known before, Murakami plows the depths of the protagonist's pysche. The clarity and disclarity of his writing never ceases to amaze.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read
Review: Murakami and Paul Bowles are my favorite authors. Don't ask me why. I guess it's because they see something beyond reality. Dance, Dance, Dance is a facinating experience, but it's also simply a fun read.
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