Review: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Rating: 2½/5 Stars

Genre: Fiction/Magical Realism

Published: October 25th, 2011

Goodreads Summary: 

"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.   

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."

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.

Review:

1Q84 is hard to describe. It's a three book long saga, a story that is so embellished and lengthy that you sort of get lost in the mass of information. It's hard to keep track of; more than once I found myself reading a sentence that related back to an event near the beginning of the book and being thoroughly confused. The condensed book is nearly a thousand pages long. To be honest, Murakami could have cut about 600 pages off and the book would have been miles better. There is just too much unnecessary material.

The story itself is not very compelling; the sci-fi elements are interesting, but nothing is explained in enough detail to make sense. I find when things aren't at least eventually explained to me in a fantasy/sci-fi book, I feel very disappointed. And when you inveset enough time in a story like you must when you read a book like 1Q84, the disappointment is all the stronger.

Another problem for me was the characters. The dialogue felt to pretentious, nothing like how people talk in real life. Every character felt bland, like a carbon copy of each other. They were all to somber; none of them had much personality, especially the main characters.

That being said, Murakami's writing is amazing. It's atmospheric, and every metaphor and character action feels meticulously chosen. Also, the story is intriguing in its strangeness, enough that I read the whole book. There is a lot of cool allegory and parallels, which I always love reading about.

Overall, 1Q84 is a good book but not as good as it could have been, I will still pick up another Murakami book, since I've heard such rave reviews about his writing, but I won't be recommending 1Q84 to anyone.