Review: "1Q84" by Haruki Murakami

Not to use egregious hyperbole, but I feel that Haruki Murakmi is one of the two greatest living writers of fiction (along with South African novelist J. M. Coetzee). Not because he is one of my favorite authors, but simply because the way in which he views the world and the way his stories can touch people on many different levels, makes his talent as a writer of very long and weird novel indispensable. He is a rare breed of modern writer, one who has the many literary scholars with sticks firmly planted in their asses praising the postmodern sensibilities and magical realists techniques he uses in his stories (he has twice been in third to win the Nobel Prize, and think he will win it one day), but the stories have a narrative drive that surpasses any kind of alienating weirdness, and you cannot help but get caught up in wherever his characters are going, which makes his books perfect for vacation, beach, or airplane reading. They wholly envelope the reader in a world that transcends a mere fictional landscape or even another world: they actually become the dreams of the reader. For this reason, Murakami is a writer of our times, able to accurately portray the courage and challenge of reaching out to the world and being honest about your feelings and emotions while also capturing the reader’s imagination with breathtaking feats of storytelling magic. His new book, 1Q84, I really don’t want to call a masterpiece (I still think he has great works ahead of him) but it just may be. Judging by the length, both of the physical book and the size of the story, it is a culmination of themes Murakami has been known for; the idea of fate in a modern world, the little connections we make and the giant ripples they can create, and how love can go beyond important aspects of relationships and simply be destined, or how we want it to be. We meet the first main character, Aomame, as she gest out of a cab during a traffic jam on the highway in order to complete her job of killing a man. On the advice of the cab driver, she descends the stairs leading out of the expressway, and discovers, through observation, that she is in a new 1984, one slightly different from the one she was in. meanwhile, Tengo, an aspiring writer, takes a ghostwriting gig to rewrite the novel of a strange 17-year old. Over 900 pages, and these stories converge; we meet a weird cast of characters, odd events (such as a sky with two moons), and learn how both Tengo and Aomame had to end up in 1Q84. Really this is a book where a synopsis is pointless. You just have to read this book, and try to figure it out. You may not in fact, because with Murakmai, the mystery is the mystery, and the journey you take with this giant novel is filled with great truths and stunning leaps in the imagination. Cannot recommend enough.

Rating: 5/5