1/3 Through 1Q84 and Already Hooked on Murakami

My spoiler-free thoughts on the first book of Haruki Murakami’s highly immersive trilogy

My copy is pretty battered from being carried around daily

I often listen to book reviews on YouTube and one of my favourite booktubers who I recently discovered is Alana Estelle. It was she who inspired me to pick up Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. The way she talked about this voluminous novel in three parts really piqued my interest and I found myself picking it up at the big Waterstones in Piccadilly, reading the first few pages and being instantly sold on it. A month and a half later (I’m a slow reader these days), I’ve finished the first book and so this review will focus only on it.

I’m not going to give a plot summary, because I think this is the sort of book where the less you know about the characters and the plot, the better. I made the mistake of reading blurbs on the internet and regretted it, because what in other novels might be considered just the most basic details you expect to know right off the bat in 1Q84 feels like spoilers. It is undoubtedly a character-driven novel, and, whilst there definitely is a discernible plot, it is complex and non-linear, and requires the reader to piece together clues the author drops along the way in order to discover how the two POVs are connected and what is likely to be the thread that will finally bring them together.

There are a lot of flashbacks and through them we get to know the two main characters, Aomame and Tengo, like you might get to know a friend through a series of conversations over a long period where each time they open up a bit more and reveal a new side of themselves that you hadn’t anticipated. It is a fascinating psychological exploration of two very different personalities and the factors in their lives that ultimately made them who they are.

It invites the reader to think deeply about such themes as nature vs nurture, free will vs pre-determinism, the blurred lines between sincerely held belief and extremism, the end justifying the means or not… and the author does not aim to steer you towards one answer or another; rather, this is the sort of novel that would rather let you make up your own mind. Central to the plot is a fictional cult modelled on the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult responsible for the chemical terror attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995.

The novel is set across two versions of reality: 1984 and 1Q84 (Q-teen eighty-four). 1Q84 is a parallel reality that is very similar to the real 1984 in Japan but the reader is gradually introduced to the features that set it apart. In Japanese, the word play on the title is excellent — ‘kyu’ means nine. In terms of genre, I would describe it as urban magical realism with sci-fi undertones. Whilst the speculative elements play an important role, the realism does most of the heavy lifting.

It is not like anything I’ve ever read before. It is not the kind of novel where you can easily predict what will happen next or in which direction the character development will go. This is my first venture into Murakami’s fiction and, even though some people maintain that it is not a good choice for a first ever Murakami read, it definitely worked for me. It worked so well in fact that I’d confidently say after just one book that I’ve found a new favourite author.

I’ve read conflicting reviews of 1Q84 and it seems like, as Alana Estelle says in her review as well, this novel is very much like marmite — you either love it or you hate it. Some of the more negative reviews say 1Q84 is too long and should have been way shorter, which I so far completely disagree with. The slow pacing and the repetitions serve a purpose, add depth and add to the world of the novel feeling truly lived in. Had it been shorter, had it cut some flashbacks and reflections, it would have lost some of its depth and psychological complexity.

I will share my thoughts on the second and third books as well as soon as I’m done with them, and I am also very much planning on reading Murakami’s other novels.