Dance Dance Dance

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Dance Dance Dance
Author	Haruki Murakami
Original title	ダンス・ダンス・ダンス Dansu dansu dansu
Translator	Alfred Birnbaum
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Kodansha International (JPN)
Publication date	January 1994
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	393 pp
ISBN	ISBN 4-7700-1683-2
Preceded by	Norwegian Wood
Followed by	South of the Border, West of the Sun

For the Beach Boys song see Dance, Dance, Dance (song). For the Chic song see Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah). For the Earth Wind & Fire song see Rock & Rule.

Dance Dance Dance (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 English translation by Alfred Birnbaum was released in 1994. The book is a sequel to Murakami's novel A Wild Sheep Chase, although the plot lines are not entirely contiguous.

1 Plot summary
2 Major themes
3 Book information
4 External links

[edit] Plot summary

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 even knew her real name. She 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 this woman 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, viz. 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.

[edit] Major themes

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 includes are alienation, absurdity and the ultimate discovery of a human connection.

There is a character in the story named Hiraku Makimura, which is an anagram of "Haruki Murakami." Makimura is also a best selling author.

v • d • e Books by Haruki Murakami

Novels	Hear the Wind Sing · Pinball, 1973 · A Wild Sheep Chase · Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World · Norwegian Wood · Dance Dance Dance · South of the Border, West of the Sun · The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle · Sputnik Sweetheart · Kafka on the Shore · After Dark

Short story Collections	The Elephant Vanishes · Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman · After the Quake

Nonfiction	Underground