1Q84 #1 by Haruki Murakami - Book Review

Me holding my hardcover copy of 1Q84, which I bought on the day it was released in Fully Booked, Greenhills Promenade. 

It's really dirty. I spilled some coffee on it. I will finish reading it soon. 

I haven't read the whole 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, but I've probably read part one of this novel more times than any other novel I've read before. It's not that I didn't enjoy reading part one. In fact, I loved it. It's just one of those stories so heavy and detailed that I have to pause for a while. It just so happens that when I get back to reading it, I feel like starting all over again.

1Q84 is set in a Tokyo during a fictionalized 1984. I assume the parallel between this book and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four will become more apparent in parts two and three. Part one alternates between the narratives of female assassin/gym instructor Aomame and budding novelist/male cram school mathematics teacher Tengo.

Aomame kills with a needle pressed  onto a precise point at the back of her target's neck. Soon, she begins seeing weird things: police using handguns instead of the usual revolvers and there being two moons in the sky, all with no recollection of how these changes came to be. She is also tasked with assassinating the head of the Sakigake cult who is raping young women.

Tengo is contacted by his literary agent, who gives him a bizarre proposal to consider: editing the a poorly written yet utterly gripping manuscript titled Air Chrysalis, so it can win a literary competition. The manuscript was written by Fuka-Eri, a girl with a mysterious past who immediately agrees with the literary agent's idea. She wins the competition, but suddenly disappears.

1Q84 is written in massive detail. Murakami can spend paragraphs explaining how a character looks, how a character thinks she looks, how a character thinks, how a character thinks she thinks, what a character is doing, what a character thinks she's doing, and so on and so forth, without becoming too boring. It even works when he depicts on the same level of detail, minor characters that appear only once. In fact, these details enrich the story, and make reading it a heavy experience unique to Murakami's novels.

I appreciate the balance between Aomame's and Tengo's narratives. I enjoy reading about fictional assassins and writers very much. The only part I had difficulty reading was the scene where Tengo reads this story about the Gilyaks to Fuka-Eri. Those were really long and boring passages. Maybe they're important, but I haven't seen that yet.

I'm excited to see what happens when Aomame and Tengo meet and their stories merge, if ever that happens. I have a feeling the two protagonists will uncover the truth behind the Sakigake cult together. Hopefully, I'll find out soon.

My Rating:
5 out of 5