Lengthy Review of Murakami’s 1Q84

Another review of 1Q84, rather substantial.

I can’t remember the last time a foreign-language book was covered as thoroughly in English upon publication as 1Q84. We’ve already seen The Guardian report on it, this long review, and Murakami discussing it in a recent interview.

From the most recent review:

To a certain extent, 1Q84 is the simple love story that Murakami suggests, centered on the image of the jazz standard “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” But, of course, the book includes an array of other themes, some handled better than others. Murakami’s word choices, specifically a couple of terms he uses with frequency, identify these major themes of the novel and reveal how he uses Aomame and Tengo within the novel.

First, something is rotten in Tokyo in 1984. Numerous intrigues are described as usankusai: fishy, shady or suspicious. An editor conspires to ghost-write a novel and have it win the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious award for up and coming writers. A secret religious cult (loosely based on radical movements of the ’60s and religious cults like Aum Shinrikyo) plots some terrible evil in its Yamanashi Prefecture compound. A wealthy, landed woman wages a covert war on misogyny. The world undergoes abrupt, strange, and highly specific changes, and that trip to the dark side of the moon is more literal than you might expect.

More Murakami in The Quarterly Conversation

• Haruki Murakami’s Supernatural War
• Murakami’s Meaningful Metaphors
• Reviews of Murakami’s Novels

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