Dance, dance, dance (Japanese title ダンス・ダンス・ダンス, Dansu, dansu, dansu) is the sixth novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, first published in 1988. The book is a sequel to Murakami's novel A Wild Sheep Chase, although the plot lines are not entirely contiguous. Haruki Murakami, 村上春樹 Murakami Haruki (born January 12, 1949) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. ... A Wild Sheep Chase,羊をめぐる冒険 (Hitsuji o meguru bōken), is a novel published in 1982 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. ...

Synopsis

The novel follows the surreal misadventures of an unnamed protagonist who makes a living as a commercial writer. The protagonist is compelled to return to the Dolphin Hotel, a seedy establishment where he once spent the night with a woman he loved, despite the fact he never knew her real name and addressed her only as "Kiki." Kiki has since disappeared without a trace, and the Dolphin Hotel has been purchased by a large corporation and converted into a slick, fashionable, Western-style hotel. The protagonist begins experiencing dreams in which Kiki and the Sheep Man, a strange individual dressed in an old sheep skin who speaks in a monotonous rush, appear to him and lead him to uncover two mysteries. The first is metaphysical in nature: how to survive the unsurvivable. The second is the murder of a call-girl in which an old school friend of the protagonist, now a famous film actor, is a prime suspect. Along the way, the protagonist meets a clairvoyant and troubled 13-year-old girl, her equally troubled parents, a one-armed poet, and a sympathetic receptionist.

Several of the novel's themes are hallmarks of Murakami's writing. Dance, dance, dance deals with themes of loss and abandonment, as do many of Murakami's other novels. Often, the male protagonist in a Murakami novel will lose a mother, spouse, or girlfriend. Other common Murakami themes this novel addresses are those of alienation, absurdity, and the ultimate discovery of a human connection.

References

• Murakami, Haruki. Dance dance dance: a novel, translated by Alfred Birnbaum. ISBN 4-77-001683-2.