Travel in a Sputnik
Sunday, July 22, 2007, 4:26 PM
Murakami's work is pretty out of the world but nevertheless beautiful and here are some of the lines again I have stolen:
On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first man made satellite. Spuntnik I, from the Bailkanor Space Centre in the Republic of Kazakhstan, Sputnik was 58 cm in diameter, weighted 83.6 kilogram and orbited the earth in 96 minutes and 12 seconds.
On 3 November of the same year, Sputnik II was successfully launched, with the dog Laika on the board. Laika became the first living being to leave the earth's atmosphere but the satellite was never recovered and Laika ended up sacrificed for the sale of biological research in space.
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I like the metaphor they used it here:
"I understand what you mean by precarious. Sometimes I feel so -- I don’t know -- the lonely kind of helplessness feeling when everything you used to have been ripped away. Like there is no more gravity and I am left to drift in outer space and have no idea where I am going."
"Like a little lost Sputnik?"
"I guess so."
"Why do people have to be this lonely? What is the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them are yearning looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here to just nourish human’s loneliness? "
"I turned face up on the slab of the stone, gazed at the sky and thought about all the man made satellites spinning around the earth the horizon in was still etched in a faint glow and stars began to blink on the deep, wine colored sky. I glazed among them for the light of a satellite but it was still too bright to spot one with the naked eye. The sprinkling of stars looked nailed to the spot, unmoving. I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendents of Sputnik, even now circling the earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part and never to meet again. No word passing between them. No promise to keep."
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We walk and we seek but I guess most people travel on earth without quite connecting to it though at times.
Sources, notes and external links:
Find out more at Murakami's site
Labels: Haruki Murakami, On the bookshelf, Sputnik Sweetheart
Becky lives with a gay cat called Mr. Bond. Sometimes she has the unfortunate tendency to philosophize things in her head.
Her personal blog, Collection of My Confessions was one of the finalists for the Web Blog Awards 2007, the world's largest blog competition along with notable writers such as Neil Gaiman (the popular writer for his award-winning series The Sandman).
Currently she is also a writer for Renaissance Publishing — an independent publishing house dedicated to supporting local writing based on literary merit.
In her spare time, she enjoys doing social work such as mentoring among other eccentric things that you may not expect.
View her complete profile
Her personal blog, Collection of My Confessions was one of the finalists for the Web Blog Awards 2007, the world's largest blog competition along with notable writers such as Neil Gaiman (the popular writer for his award-winning series The Sandman).
Currently she is also a writer for Renaissance Publishing — an independent publishing house dedicated to supporting local writing based on literary merit.
In her spare time, she enjoys doing social work such as mentoring among other eccentric things that you may not expect.
View her complete profile
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- 2046
- Fragile
- Change
- Dear Self
- 21/10/2007
- Please lie to me
- Travel in a sputnik
- Many sides of a fool
- Running out of time
- TED
- Bertha
- Blogger
- Cookiemouse
- Feast or Famine
- Mr. Wang says so
- I'll talk to God but the sky is empty
*The Weblog Award is the world's largest blog competition, with over 525,000 votes cast in the 2006 edition for finalists in 45 categories, along with notable writers and bloggers.
**The Y Bloggist is organised by OMY.sg, sponsored by The Heeren Shops and Creative Technology Ltd and Supporting Media include YOUTH.sg and pulse.sg. Becky was voted as the most popular blogger in "The Next Big Blog".
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