1Q84 (Book): The best of Haruki Murakami?
In the author's own words, this was (at the time) his most ambitious novel. The story, more than 1,400 pages, is divided into 3 books and revolves around three main characters.
Aomame, a hired assassin, begins to experience strangeness in her life and believes she has entered in another world, quite similar to hers, but with slight differences. Tengo, editor of a publisher, after receiving a novel entitled "Air Chrysalis" of a young teen author named Fukaeri, also feels dragged into that other world.
The first two books have 24 chapters each, alternating the stories of Tengo and Aomame. The third book breaks the form of the previous ones and has 31 chapters in which a third voice is added: Ushikawa, a detective who, at the request of a pseudo-religious organization, first investigates Tengo and Fukaeri and then Aomame.
That another world to which reference is made has a characteristic sign: it has two moons. It's the world of 1Q84, denoted in this way to differentiate it from the real world and the time of the novel that takes place in the year 1984. Much has been said that the work has Orwellian echoes. Honestly, beyond the title and the explicit references included in Murakami's text, I don't see a very strong connection with that other book, Orwell's, which by the way has always seemed to me a good book, but a terrible novel. What it does have "1Q84" is that it's saturated with fantastic and surreal elements, which Murakami likes very much, but which don't always work and don't always add value to the plot.
Aomame and Tengo met in school but haven't seen each other since that time. Murakami builds from here a forced love story that he connects with persecutions, religious sects, beings from other worlds, the struggle between good and evil (rather the universal balance) murders, disappearances, duplicates... and with a parade of fantastic elements: the ghost of Tengo's father visiting his clients, the "Little People" coming out of the mouth of Ushikawa's corpse, the two moons, or the immaculate conception of Aomame, who gets magically pregnant with Tengo's child at the exactly same moment he was having sex with another woman (?) ... and other things that unnecessarily enlarge the novel.
Throughout the plot, there are many similarities between the story of Tengo and Aomame. Among other:
Aomame | Tengo |
|---|---|
| She's 30 years old. | He's 30 years old. |
| At the beginning of the book she hears Janáček Sinfonietta and is surprised to recognize it at the first bars. | Janáček Sinfonietta was the piece for which he prepared when, surprisingly, he had to play in the university band. |
| She dates older men, for a one night stand. | He's got an affair with an older married woman. |
| When she was little, she used to go out on Sundays with her mother to evangelize. | As a child, he accompanied his father to collect money on Sundays. |
| She's lonely. | He's lonely. |
| Her boss trusts her and her abilities. | His boss trusts in his work. |
| Aomame hides from the people of Sakigake 'cause She's in danger. | Fukaeri hides because she feels in danger. |
At first, these multiple similarities make us think that one of them is not real, but the projection of the other in that other world; or maybe, the story of Aomame is the book that Tengo is writing. Had it been so, the result would have been, perhaps, a quite acceptable metafiction. But Murakami's sin is not the way he chooses, but how he does it: he solves some primordial questions, poorly.
A character in a certain situation may have a hunch about something, that's fine; but the author abuses the absurd intuitions of the main characters (Aomame, Tengo, Ushikawa) and spends the resource, prostitutes it throughout the novel, how is it possible that the three characters always have such accurate intuitions? I don't buy it. In addition to that, we have a loose end, too conventional and unimaginative for a novel that's anything but that and leaves many questions open and many loose ends: what happened to Fukaeri? With the people of Sakigake? With the Ushikawa's chrysalis? Is Aomame's baby real? Did they sneak the unborn child back into the real world, to 1984?
One thing's to leave an open end, suggested or suggestive, and quite another to leave the book without an end beyond the term of the pages.
Possibly, the fame of the book (and Murakami's) is due in large part to the Western references it uses (in this novel: Proust, Chekhov, Hitchcock, Space Odyssey 2001, Jazz music) and that make him seem less far for us that other Japanese authors less westernized; and on the other hand, it can also be due to good quotes that roll on the Internet of his books. This book, in particular, contains some very good ones:
“Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.”
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.”
“That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”
“But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”
In addition to the quotes, in Murakami's books there are always deep and interesting reflections on loneliness, time, past, love and diversity of themes for which the Japanese author has a good eye because he is a good writer, only that , to me, "1Q84" is far from the supreme literary work that people say it is. In my opinion, it barely borders the threshold of what I conceive as Literature (with capital "L") and it doesn't happen to be more than an entertaining book, although unjustifiably extensive.
If you're interested in reading something from the author, I recommend these titles, also representative of Murakami's style (you can read at least 4 of them at the time you would read 1Q84 and the experience would be more gratifying):
- Norwegian Blues (Novel)
- Sputnik Sweetheart (Novel)
- South of the Border, West of the Sun (Novel)
- Men Without Women (Short stories)
- What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Essay)
Finally, it only remains to say that the initial question of the post must be answered with a resounding negative.
Reviewed by @cristiancaicedo
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Inside Llewyn Davis (Film): The funny side of tragedy
The Neon Demon (Movie): symbolism and references explained
Ride - Lana del Rey (Song): the poetic in the anthem of a generation
Persépolis (Película): una historia vigente
1Q84 (Libro): ¿Lo mejor de Haruki Murakami?
Inside Llewyn Davis (Película): La comicidad de la tragedia