We are all sputniks – we are all satellites. Among many other themes and symbols Murakami uses in his novel, “Sputnik Sweetheart,” the satellite is one of the most predominant ones used in the book and one of the clearest to decipher. Throughout the book, Murakami continues to reference back to the idea of a sputnik and often reminds us that we are all sputniks. What does that mean though?
Near the beginning of the book, a character looks up the word sputnik and finds that it means “traveling companion” in Russian. It is ironic that after this original definition, the book always references back to sputnik as a metaphor for life. Murakami compares us to satellites since we are always alone in life. We are locked inside our bodies, or our sputniks, and cannot escape our sputniks. We will orbit the planet in an orbit that we have no control over and can only await our inevitable end. Every now and then, another sputnik might cross paths with us. And yet we cannot stop to spend more time with the other sputnik. We are immediately taken away from the other sputnik and may never see it again.
Indeed, sputnik is a metaphor for life in Murakami’s book. Like the sputnik, we are stuck in our bodies and in our destiny, our fate. We will never be able to get out of our bodies to know someone else – we can only observe from afar.
The novel as a whole, as well as several specific details, expands on this theme after it is established in the beginning. First, the two main characters, are like sputniks for each other – they are travelling companions, or sputniks. In the novel, they travel from Japan to Italy and then France, ending up on a small island in the Aegean Sea. They get to know each other fairly well, but there is always some distance between the two – they are stuck in their own viewpoint, their own set of experiences. They each have their own reasons for the trip – one for business and the other for pleasure – and even the ways in which they are bonded together are different for each: one is sexually attracted to the other, while the opposite is not true.
One way in which the novel seems to breach the concept of the sputnik is that one of the main characters somehow goes to the “other” side, which I interpret as leaving one’s sputnik. The novel is very unclear as to what she does when this happens since she disappears from the world while she visits the “other side.” Emphasis, however, is placed on the fact that the very ordinary narrator is unable to leave his sputnik, implying that only people with very special qualities can leave their sputniks.
So my question to you guys is this: have any of you ever left your sputnik, or have you always felt bound to an existence in a separated, orbiting satellite? What do you think it takes to leave your sputnik and what does it really mean to do so?
AP English Literature at Lovett 
April 29, 2016 at 2:22 pm
James, you always ask the hard questions! You’re really making me think! I have never read this book, but I always enjoy reading your blogs, because you make such succinct analyses and ask provoking questions.
To begin, I think that, given your definition of sputnik, saying that all human beings are stunk in our own sputniks is a bit of an over-exaggeration. We aren’t some listless creature, with little control over a pre-destined life, and I would say that this definition most definitely undermines the significance of human connection as well as relationships. When I think about an image of my life I picture it as a web of relationships.
However, the general metaphor of the sputnik is quite candid. The topic that we know most about is our self. We are inherently selfish human beings; people always say that self-promotion is a driving force in society. What about the maxim, we’re all unique? That would definitely support the idea that we all have our own sputniks, and that each person has a different reason for doing something.
I think that we all have to make a conscious effort to get out of our orbits, to meet other sputniks, and take control of our own fate. Hopefully, I do that, but often I feel as if I’m walking a path that many have walked before me, and that it is expected for me to do so. This path in the simplest form, would be graduating from high-school, going to college, finding a job, getting married, and having kids. All the while, contributing a little to society, but nothing significant. Probably the biggest thing I will leave behind me – if I keep going at the rate I am – will be carbon footprint.
Superb job, per usual!
April 30, 2016 at 12:19 pm
I appreciate your comment, Hollis, and though I agree with you that we may have some control over how our lives turn out, I do think that the sputnik metaphor is a kind of objection to the idea that one’s life is a “web of relationships.” The sputnik metaphor is saying that we will never truly understand other people. We can make efforts to communicate to them, but we will never occupy the space or the viewpoint they occupy – we can’t exit our sputniks to enter those of another. You can have friends and get along well with them, but the significance of those relationships are limited by the isolation we have in our own minds. I will never be able to fully understand exactly how anyone else thinks or feels. A somewhat humorous example may better illustrate this concept. It may be that you like chocolate ice cream, just as I like chocolate ice cream. However, I like chocolate ice cream in a way that is fundamentally different from the way you like chocolate ice cream. And this goes beyond the idea that we have different reasons for liking chocolate ice cream. We both may enjoy particularly the texture of the chocolate in chocolate ice cream. But I have never felt chocolate ice cream in your mouth using your tongue to taste it. I have only felt chocolate ice cream on my tongue and so my access to experience is filtered through my own body, my own sputnik. This creates a fundamental isolation that we all feel as a part of the human experience. The sputnik metaphor is not just a way to explain things like people being selfish or doing things for different reasons. It demonstrates a fundamental loneliness that is inherent to life and inescapable as a living being.
May 2, 2016 at 12:52 pm
At this point in my life, I cannot say that I have ever truly left my sputnik. I have always lived with my parents, gone to school, played sports, and done everything that is considered “normal” growing up. To truly leave your sputnik, you have go through a drastic change in your life, and so far I have lived a pretty normal life. I think that all of us, as seniors, are about to depart our sputniks as we go off to college this fall. It is going to be most of our first experiences living completely on our own without our parents watching over us 24/7. We are responsible for everything, and that is going to be wildly different from our lives right now. There will certainly be a learning curve, but I am definitely looking forward to departing my sputnik and experiencing a new way of life.