Book Review: Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84

Mariana Trujillo
February 17, 2012
Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Books

There are approximately six Haruki Murakami novels living in the messy bookshelves of my home – among them, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, After Dark, and 1987’s Norwegian Wood, the one credited to Murakami’s burst of literary fame in his native Japan – and they are all notably not covered in dust.

On this basis, I am familiar with Murakami’s favored plotline themes of talking cats, dramatic unsolved murders, an average jazz-loving male lead in his 30s, etc. I am familiar with Murakami’s distant, unorganized-yet-formulated writing style. I had always liked it. But, after reading Murakami’s latest, 1Q84, I checked up on Murakami’s Wikipedia page to remind myself of his age – he’s 63 – and I thought only two things; either Murakami is a late bloomer and finally succumbing to a mid-life crisis or Murakami is experiencing a medical mystery that can only be described as the male equivalent of a menopause.

1Q84’ has a well-designed book cover. The back has a quote from a Chicago Tribune review stating, “Murakami is a genius.” The title’s obviously a play on George Orwell’s 1984, which hints a strong sci-fi influence. On the outside, really, this book is completely attractive on a library shelf to any book-craver… it also just happens to be 928 pages. That’s immensely long to any book reader, much more to the typical teenager who’s already busy with watching Netflix, not sleeping, and maybe a little homework. And sadly, the 928 pages eventually fill out to feel more like 1,928 pages. At least the publishers in Japan were smart enough to separate the book into three 300-page volumes (all came out in 2009), instead of cramming them together as what happened to the English-translated version released in October 2011.

With a long book comes a long plot… and a subplot… and another subplot… and another one… and then some several-page scenes here and there that contribute to… nothing. Nevertheless, when Murakami does write such scenes, they are not at all useless. The novel starts with introducing Aomame (meaning “green peas”), a lonely 34-year-old stuck in a taxi during heavy traffic on her way to an “appointment”.  The next twelve pages are basically Aomame appreciating the classical music on the taxi radio and the taxi driver advising her to climb down Toyko’s Metropolitan Expressway emergency stairs and walk in order to be on time for that “appointment”. The classical music piece on the radio, to be exact, was composer Leoš Janáček’s Sinfionietta.

“[Aomame] closed her eyes again and concentrated on the music. She knew nothing about Janáček as a person, but she was quite sure that he never imagined that in 1984 someone would be listening to his composition in a hushed Toyota Crown Royal Saloon on the gridlocked elevated Metropolitan Expressway in Toyko. Why, though, Aomame wondered, had she instantly recognized the piece to be Janáček’s Sinfionietta? And how did she know it had been composed in 1926? The music gave her an odd, wrenching kind of feeling. Aomame had no idea what was going on. Could Sinfionietta actually be giving me this weird feeling?” – page 5

And then another non-contributing passage includes when, two chapters later, Aomame spots a rubber plant on an apartment balcony. She stares at it for a while and notices spiderwebs are clinging to it, directing her thoughts to spiders for a good two paragraphs until she realizes that spiders must never feel confusion, despair, or regrets.

“No metaphysical doubt, no moral complications. Probably. Unlike me. I have to move with a purpose, which is why I’m alone now, climbing down these stupid emergency stairs… I move, therefore I am.” – page 29

You see, Murakami adds subtle deep-thought-provoking flairs to keep the story going and it serves as relatable character development but most of all, an assurance that the reader will be reminded of 1Q84 rather often when not actually reading it whether the reader ever finds oneself rediscovering a piece of music, or staring at another living thing and thinking hard about it – or like later in the book -