Title:
1Q84
Author:
Haruki Murakami
Progress:
25%
Amazon
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
NYT
BS Hardcover/E-Book List: #25 (but was in the top 10 for a while)
Book
7 out of 107
I had read a few
commercial thrillers in a row and was craving something a little deeper.
Mr. King’s “11/22/63”
almost scratched that itch, but not quite. I wanted my brain fed something a
little more substantial, chewy and satisfying.
“1Q84” seemed to fill
that bill. And it almost adhered to my rules for this project. It was a New
York Times bestseller, and did indeed feature a crime, murder in fact. I jumped
right in.
Woah. Trippy.
First off, I went into
it not expecting what I like in crime thriller fiction, namely, sex, violence,
a sense of danger and a taste of darkness. I was expecting an arty, dense, and
deep read, but without much fun. I guess I was expecting a Japanese version of
a Franzen novel with a little surrealism thrown in. (When discussing Mr.
Murakami, people talk about surrealism a lot.)
Not too far into the
book, a sexy female assassin kills a man with needle to the base of neck.
That’s the kind of thing
that might happen in a Sandra Brown novel, but not a book by a writer who
collects literary awards like he’s an 8-year-old collecting little league participation
trophies.
And there is sex too,
not graphic scenes, but adult thoughts about erotic situations, followed by the
emotional aftermath of such encounters.
To my surprise, I’m
getting my thriller itch scratched and my artful literature muscle massaged. I
have cake and am eating it too. Nice. Thank Mr. Murakami!
From the first 25% of
“1Q84”, here is what I’ve learned…
I like character
development. Pages and pages are devoted to careful construction of living
characters who have been grown, groomed and perfected like perfect little
origami trees, each complete unique and yet each defined to the point that
there is an elegant discipline evident in the eye of the creator.
I like weird
coincidences, and this novel is full of them, small patterns and references
that tie to each other, creating a support structure, but for what I’m not sure
yet. The mystery that drives this book isn’t an obvious one. It’s subtle,
delicate. How are these two characters (the sexy assassin and the bookish
giant) going to come together?
Two stories are being
told, each completely separate, and toward the end of quarter one, they have
begun to flirt with each other, winking, touching hands, but not quite joining
yet.
The whole thing feels
Japanese, the patience of it, the elegance, the simplicity that belies a deep,
perhaps incomprehensible, dare I say inscrutable, complexity.
Also need to note
this…Mr. Murakami, like the previous authors I’ve read, also seems to be an
outliner, even though he denies it in interviews. His plan seems quite clear
for Quarter One, develop the two stories, and the two main characters, and then
begin the connection process at precisely the 25% mark. It happened right on
schedule and the next quarter is going to go in quite a different direction now
that the two halves of this novel have begun to impact each other.
Underneath it all are
the mysteries that make it hard to put the book down. Who are the Little People?
What’s up with the second green moon? Did the world change somehow when Aomame
went down that ladder?
If this is ever a movie,
and it never will be, David Lynch should write and direct. Only the auteur
behind Mulholland Falls and Inland Empire could capture anything close the
dizzy feeling this hypnotic novel creates.
What have we learned?
First off, we learned that even an arty novel can have sexy female assassins.
Good to know. Second, don’t be so afraid of character development. If they are
good characters, fleshing them out with deep backstory is fine. Sometimes
modern commercial thrillers speed along so fast they read more like story
outlines than completed novels. At 1,000 pages, I think 1Q84 is complete, and
if the first 250 are any indication, each one will be worth reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment