Jay Rubin

Haruki Murakami

J. Philip Gabriel

1Q84

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84—“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. 

As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s—1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

mia sønderskov

loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you

Alec Karlen

“His face looked very peaceful. It was like-a windless day at the end of autumn, when a single leaf falls from a tree. But maybe that's not a good way to put it."

This is Murakami quoting Anton Chekhov but I thought it was beautiful

While all around there is not a single living soul, not a bird, not a fly and it is beyond comprehension who the waves are roaring for, who listens to them at nights here, what they want, and, finally, who they would roar for when I was gone.

Kai Hatcher

そこは世界にただひとつの完結した場所だった。どこまでも孤立しながら、孤独に染まることのない場所だった。

10月-12月

1Q84(イチ・キュウ・ハチ・ヨン).

Kiran Aftab

Haruki’s style of writing is something so unique and beautiful. There are only a few authors that I have been exposed to that can reach what he is able to convey with his skill. While this was a long read, I feel like my mind was constantly tested while reading this novel but in a good way. The whole novel was really well put together and also very special. I’m really excited to check out the rest of his work.

Stef Hite

I'm not a big fan of Japanese fiction, but this book got great reviews. It took some time to make sense of the story, but then became very compelling and was completely worth reading.

While their stories influence one another, at times by accident and at times intentionally, the two come closer and closer to intertwining.

Books one and two

Lovro Oreskovic

I have promised myself that I would write something about every book I mark as read on Goodreads. Even if it is just a couple of sentences. And now this gets me in a weird situation because I really just read 2/3 of this book not the whole, but regardless here I go:

This is the first book written by Murakami that I read. I heard a lot about his books and that they can get a bit weird. I really like his style of writing, it reminds me a lot of William Gibsons style, especially the newer stuff (Blue Ant and Bridge trilogies). 
Together the three parts have about 1000 pages, but the thing I really liked is that there are a lot of pages of stuff happening that have nothing to do with the basis plot. At the moment I am reading the third part, after the end of the second book it seems that there is no way the story can go on, so it keeps getting more interesting.
All in all it is an interesting read.

Sarah Sammis

Bookshop, Hayward

Big books need savoring. I usually have one door stop book going, along with the shorter books I tear through in a couple of days. Normally a chunkster will take me three or four months. Sometimes — like Ulyssses, it will take me six months. In the case of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami , I needed fifty weeks.

1Q84 was originally published as three books over the course of 2010 - 2011. The first imported translation has all three books in one volume — and that's the one I read. The books, though, are still labeled. Books one and two contain the bulk of the novel's pages, with the final book working like an extended coda.

The first two books are told as parallel stories: that of Aomame, a fitness instructor and part-time hit woman, and Tengo, an editor and part-time mathematics cram tutor. Both have their lives fundamentally changed after making unusual, split-decisions. Aomame having an appointment to keep, leaves her taxi on the crowded overhead freeway to take the emergency stairs in hopes of catching a subway train. After leaving the stairway she beings to notice changes in the world. Tengo, meanwhile, agrees to ghostwrite (re-write) the novella of a teenage girl for entry into a literary competition. The novella ends up winning the prize, thus lifting the book into best seller status and the girl into unexpected fame.

Now while there is a parallel earth — coined 1Q84 by Aomame — most of the novel is more personal and character oriented. Tengo has issues to work out with his father. He also has the novel he's working on. Aomame wants to right the wrongs brought again women by men. She's found her calling, by taking work from the Dowager.

But that parallel world is there, lurking under the surface. It's most obvious sign comes in the form of a sky with two moons. As Tengo and Aomame struggle through their issues, they are drawn farther and farther into 1Q84, until there is nothing left but to either fight back or find a way to escape.

While a dedicated reader could read the book in a month, I preferred reading it slowly. I read two chapters a week (give or take) — one of Aomame's and one of Tengo's. Later in the third, I would read three chapters as a go.

amari

madreadz⟢

3.75 stars. Not the kind of ending I was expecting but what a mammoth of a book this was? I remember getting this book back in 2017 but had to take multiple hiatuses as it was a lot to take in. While I didn’t enjoy the repetitiveness of certain phrases in this book—and the overtly sexualised characters, I was still drawn to the dystopian, fantastical and magical realism aspects of the story. How Murakami manages to weave through and intertwine reality with the other world is extraordinary. He really took his time to build the anticipation of Tengo & Aomame’s encounter. I sometimes forget this is actually a .. love story? The main plot has so many layers—intricately woven characters and worlds; and while it was fun unravelling it page by page, it also left me very perplexed, especially with so many gaps to fill by the end of it.

Nabila Azahra

a pleasant read! :) although i must say some parts felt anticlimactic.

The long-awaited magnum opus from Haruki Murakami, in which this revered and bestselling author gives us his hypnotically addictive, mind-bending ode to George Orwell's 1984. The year is 1984. Aomame is riding in a taxi on the expressway, in a hurry to carry out an assignment. Her work is not the kind that can be discussed in public. When they get tied up in traffic, the taxi driver suggests a bizarre 'proposal' to her. Having no other choice she agrees, but as a result of her actions she starts to feel as though she is gradually becoming detached from the real world. She has been on a top secret mission, and her next job leads her to encounter the superhuman founder of a religious cult. Meanwhile, Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange disturbance that develops over a literary prize. While Aomame and Tengo impact on each other in various ways, at times by accident and at times intentionally, they come closer and closer to meeting. Eventually the two of them notice that they are indispensable to each other. Is it possible for them to ever meet in the real world?

3 of 5 stars

-----


I'm going to start off with the things I didn't like about this book. I am all for the writing as it was easy to read and approachable but there are some parts that didn't sit with me well. The sexual narrative was cringey. I was wincing every single time Tengo described the 'swell of the breasts' of every woman he met. The intent was nothing sexually perversive than to simply describe the woman in front of him but still! Every time he was having a 'private time' with a woman, or even in Aomame's point of view while staring at her own body, it wouldn't be complete if there's no description of the 'pubic hair'. Every. Single. Time. He even found a way to mention pubic hair by describing Ushikawa's frizzy hair. And how can I place my trust to someone who used the word 'ejaculation' to describe the sexual release in every sexual encounter in the whole book, like dude you can describe it in different ways. And the word 'pumping'?! What the hell? His sexual narrative was unpleasant it weirded me out. I don't know if it was really Murakami's technique or it was just influenced by the translator but either way, it was kind of ridiculous. 

This book was also so unnecessary lengthy. Maybe the story was served best in a long book. I would definitely understand if it was 600 page long but more than a thousand page? I don't think it needed to be that long. And the problem alongside that was the fact that it was that long yet there are still a lot of things left unanswered. What happened to the other characters that were left hanging like Tengo's older girlfriend, Fuka-Eri, Tsubasa, Buzzcut and Ponytail, and even the six Little People that exited Ushikawa's mouth? What the hell happened to them? This book was as vague as it was lengthy. And I was not that happy to wait basically the whole book for Tengo and Aomame to finally meet. I even started to doubt if they were really going to meet. 

That being said, I still didn't have the desire to cut my reading off halfway. Despite those problems, I still found myself anticipating every chapter and I really did enjoy the whole time I was reading this. I specifically didn't consider the slow progress of the story as boring because it was what I liked about it the most. I can even considered this as the slowest build up of a story I've ever read. I didn't particularly regret reading this. I just wish it provided clear explanations and answers in exchange for the time I've invested reading this. 

This is not a great book but it was still good overall. Though it was definitely not for every kinds of readers out there but I still recommend it for those patient enough to overlook the length.

An ode to George Orwell's "1984" told in alternating male and female voices relates the stories of Aomame, an assassin for a secret organization who discovers that she has been transported to an alternate reality, and Tengo, a mathematics lecturer and novice writer.

3 Volume Boxed Set

1q84

Paula Alonso Ishihara

Simply amazing. When I got to volume 3 I couldn't put it down.

mina nayeri

i'll say thank you for the clean ending, but this was too long-winded and repetitive. everything was too written out. poop

The internationally best-selling and award-winning author of such works as What I Talk About When I Talk About Running presents a psychologically charged tale that draws on Orwellian themes. Reprint. 125,000 first printing.

“At some point in time, the world I knew either vanished or withdrew, and another world came to take its place. Like the switching of a track. In other words, my mind, here and now, belongs to the world that was, but the world itself has already changed into something else.”
--------------------

Once you start reading a few of Murakami’s books, you start collecting the keys that unlock the strange, dream-like world that he builds: the magic of the ordinary things in life like cooking and music, the sudden rupture from reality through the most unassuming and forgotten spaces, the mystery of what should be the most common.

Nobody can take the ordinary, and flip it on its head and off its reality axis in the blink of an eye like Murakami can. Gripping from the very beginning, 1Q84 is another mesmerizing story from the master of magical realism that is as long-winded and strange as it is immersive. True to his style, Murakami has created a world that blurs the line between reality and fiction, with relatable but original characters bound to each other irrevocably with complex and fantastical strings.

Definitely recommended for those looking for a strange, obscure ride that skirts the line between weird and captivating.

4.5/5

I really did not like this book.  I don't know if I didn't understand it, or if there is symbolism I missed. I think I expected it to be different than it was.  I expected a more science-fiction-y take on the multiverse.  What I did not expect was a slow, repetitive exploration of Aomame's attraction to balding middle-aged men.  I thought this book had an incredibly slow pace and was incredibly long-winded in descriptions.  Some of the imagery was beautiful, but I did not like the characters.  There were many sex scenes, which I do not like.   I was going to DNF this book because it is so long (over 1110 pages), but decided to power through and get it over with, hoping it would improve, but it did not.  The three star rating is because I admire anyone who can finish writing a book, especially one of this complexity.  There is probably something I missed or I did not understand, some symbolism, or subtext, or meaning that I did not grasp.  I respect that many others think this book is amazing, but it did not appeal to me.  

shellybn

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. In this world, the fates of two people, Tengo and Aomame, are closely intertwined. They are each, in their own way, doing something very dangerous. And in this world, there seems no way to save them both. Something extraordinary is starting.

quintessential Murakami, it gets draggy in book two but it was my introduction to magical realism a long time ago. Feels like a dream with imagery that stays with you for a long time.

Xiang

 was the first book I've read in English totally.too long too.the story is  happening in Murakami's world .when you are reading  it  like as most Murakami's works  everything seems logical and real but when you close the book you will say WHAT??? Anyway I like it ♥️

Shidehdeishidi

thanks God😄 finally finished.it was the first book I've read in English totally.too long too.the story is  happening in Murakami's world .when you are reading  it  like as most Murakami's works  everything seems logical and real but when you close the book you will say WHAT??? Anyway I like it ♥️

isabel ⋆｡°✩

more like a 3 1/2. took me quite literally the entire summer but wow we made it (barely). i don't think it took me so long to read not necessarily because it isn't good, but because the story is just so dense and tightly intertwined at times it was just a lot to get through. i was really really loving it at the beginning and throughout the middle, with murakami's special style of bringing in lots of separate agents and slowly bridging the mysterious gaps in between seemingly at its peak. sadly IQ84's ending just didn't feel like it did much justice to how huge of a story it seems at first. the epic ends on a beautiful and sweet final image with tengo and aomame, two lovers intuitively connected in such a way that one can only dream about, but nothing that i could feel deep in my heart like many of murakami's other finales. i'll definitely give this a rethink, but most likely not a complete revisit.

Will Vunderink

A major disappointment from Murakami, 1Q84 is short on plot and about 300 pages too long. The writing is unnaturally bland, which makes the half-baked storyline and uninspired characters even less compelling than they would be otherwise. Murakami has covered this thematic ground -- on the seams between reality and dream worlds -- before, with great success; now it's clear that he'll never top The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Jehan Chawla

** spoiler alert **
           1Q84 in a nutshell could've been the base of the foundation for the Nolan movie "Interstellar", working on the same theme of how Love can transcend space, time and even different parallel universes/realities whatever you wanna call it. It's such a shame that an execution like this turned out like a borefest.

As a Murakami Book there's nothing Wrong with 1Q84. It has all the usual Murakami writing tropes such as Weird connotations, good world building, strange peculiarities, disappearing of relevant female characters. It even as the trope of Murakami of describing Females according to the shape of their breasts.

Split into a trilogy, The first two books were pretty gripping with it's story building structure but things did start to get boring and slow descending into the third book. Most of the time it just stuck to the Plot of character waking up, doing the usual chores that we had already read about in the former chapters and strangely with a pinch of luck stumbling onto something minuscule that helps the plot move forward.

There were so many weird things that came unanswered. Who was the Unknown aggressive NHK Collector? Saikage connection with Air chrysalis? What do the little people even want? 

Both the main protagonist came out bland per my personal taste. Tengo was a normal man still in love with a girl who held his hand God knows how many years ago. But he is likeable at some point, he doesn't really do much except well have sex with all the women in his life that would possibly like to have sex with him. No wonder he was obsessed with a story that had a town full of pussies ehhhh...... I mean cats. 

Aomame on the other hand is really a flat character, Atleast she is self aware because no matter what she achieves the only thing that she isn't happy with is being Flat. That's like her only problem. She also has a fascination with boobs; She lost two of her friends and the only thing that she was worried about was well the world lost two beautiful Breasts. Also the first book Aomame was really like a porn adaptation of male fantasy. 
Ushiwara the private investigator easily has time to shine just because how bland the two main characters are. Other than Ushiwara, side characters like Tamaru, downwager and Fuka Eri are also pretty fascinating
The plot was pretty unique and I think that's the only thing that kept me going to finish this thing and then the ending turns out to be anti-climatic too. This Trilogy could really benefit cutting over 150-200 pages of the pretty repertoire everyday chores that are written with pain strikingly boring details. Sometimes redundancy can be attractive.

1Q84 #1-2

Valeria M

"Non ho le risorse per accogliere le vite degli altri. Sono già troppo concentrata a sostenere il peso della mia vita e della mia solitudine"

jess larry

I get bored very easily & yet I wanted more pages to just appear after reaching the end

Amazing story, the connection between Aomame & Tengo is just very beautiful. And this is coming from someone who usually cringe at romance in books. 

The intrigue and whole cat & mouse story going on between the characters got me very hooked and immersed. 

I was holding my breath on the last pages, sharing their apprehension and anxiety. 

Definitely a great book !

Not sure what the book was about. But I enjoyed it while reading

Aubrey Hicks

** spoiler alert **
           At its heart, 1Q84 is a love story: a love story between lovers who must overcome great obstacles before they can be together. Murakami brings his unique kind of magic realism to Tokyo, 1984. Our lovers, Tengo and Aomame fall in love 20 years before the story begins but are separated by time and circumstances.

Unassuming math teacher and aspiring novelist, Tengo meets a manic pixie girl who has a wonderful story to tell without the perfect words. Once he undertakes the task to re-write the story he finds himself entangled in a adventure that takes him out of the reality he’s lived in his whole life into a world filled with strange beings devoted to driving the narration. Aomame enters this same “unreality” through a loophole. But once she steps foot into this world, she is noticed by the beings and must navigate her path with only half the story. 

Our task as reader is to follow them through all the twisted longing for each other until, we hope, they finally meet and hold hands once again. 

Murakami fills his world with interesting characters and proceeds to try to teach them the meaning of true love, the meaning of desire. 1Q84 isn’t my favorite. It’s very long and filled with lots of winding paths which make the pacing drag a bit – but there is something so evocative about his writing that I can’t give it any less than the highest rating. Even in translation, the words burrow into my brain and when I look up from the page I feel this intense sense of déjà vu, or maybe dreamsickness. Its like the story was always there, he just chiseled away at the marble in my brain to unearth it. 

I felt this sense of déjà vu most strongly with the Windup Bird Chronicles, and again with 1Q84. In this novel, the story within a story, the multiple character viewpoints, the repetition from multiple viewpoints, the fairy tale quality all builds this fantastic and amazing experience. He makes the reader question his or her own sense of reality and existence. He makes us check to see how many moons are in the sky. So regardless of whether the pacing is perfect, this is a masterpiece.

1Q84

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