{"id":28147,"date":"2012-12-08T15:43:42","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T19:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=28147"},"modified":"2012-12-08T22:37:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T02:37:58","slug":"jq-magazine-book-review-haruki-murakamis-1q84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2012\/12\/08\/jq-magazine-book-review-haruki-murakamis-1q84\/","title":{"rendered":"JQ Magazine: Book Review \u2013 Haruki Murakami\u2019s \u20181Q84\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Murakami\u2019s previous books were like delicious sandwiches that left you wanting more. 1Q84<\/em> is like a two-foot long sub that filled you to bursting, but you\u2019re still not totally satisfied.” (Vintage International)<\/p><\/div>\n

Roland Kelts, don’t kick me in the balls\u2014<\/p>\n

One man’s attempt to review a book honestly while still keeping friends<\/p>\n

B<\/strong><\/em>y<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Rick Ambrosio<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(<\/em><\/strong>Ibaraki-ken<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, 2006-08)<\/em><\/strong> for <\/em><\/strong>JQ magazine<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. A staple of the<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>JET Alumni Association of New York<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (JETAANY) community, Rick manages their<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Twitter page<\/strong><\/em><\/a> and is an<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>up-for-anything writer<\/strong><\/em>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My girlfriend wouldn\u2019t shut up about it.<\/p>\n

\u201c1Q84<\/em><\/a> is the best!\u00a0Ah, when it comes out in English you need to read it!\u201d Just talking about it made her rush to find her old copies (it was broken up into three books in Japan) and start reading them again. She was enthralled, to say the least. I\u2019ve been a Murakami fan for a while: Norwegian Wood<\/em> was emotional and sexually riveting; Dance Dance Dance<\/em> was creepy as hell but lots of fun;\u00a0Kafka on the Shore<\/em> blew my mind. So I was hungry for 1Q84<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I picked it up shortly after it came out\u2026and put it down for a while\u2026then picked it up again\u2026then down\u2026 then up\u2026I think you get the idea. My feelings can kind of be summed up like this: Murakami\u2019s previous books were like delicious sandwiches that left you wanting more. 1Q84<\/em> is like a two-foot long sub that filled you to bursting, but you\u2019re still not totally satisfied.<\/p>\n

The plot follows two people tied together by fate, love, and inter-dimensional happenstance. Tengo is an author and math teacher who finds himself embroiled in a shady plot to write an award-winning book. Aomame is a fitness instructor with a decidedly darker side job. Both find themselves in an altered version of 1984 called 1Q84 that deviates from the previous reality in specific ways. Those changes seem to revolve around a cult, a beautiful young girl, a book and mysterious “Little People.” Their battle to beat the odds and find each other, discover where they are, and who’s behind the changed world is an epic journey told through alternating perspectives.<\/p>\n

1Q84<\/em> had all the things I love about Murakami: Super complex, interesting and engaging characters, crazy inter-dimensional sex, lots of mystery, and supernatural elements that bring it right on the cusp of reality, teetering between a fantasy realm and the real 1984. His ability to walk that line (like a cat walking a picket fence for those who love cats not only in Murakami novels, but also in reviews of Murakami novels) is astounding and he does it\u2026for a really long time.<\/p>\n

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I suppose that\u2019s my only real big complaint about 1Q84<\/em>: It\u2019s long. Like, really, really long. I get it; you are all about characters, we are getting into their lives, seeing how the world is conspiring against or for our two star-crossed lovers. Here and there we get some really fun stuff. But honestly, I kind of think he could have wrapped it all in a bow with two books.<\/p>\n

There are times when I didn\u2019t need to know Aomame worked out again, for the fifth time in a row. Oh, did Tengo talk to the nurses again? Good, great, noted. C\u2019MON!!! The book starts and ends strong, with some really fun cliffhangers, but somewhere between books two and three it just kind of lags. Who is following whom, long seemingly random trips outside Tokyo and extended workout sessions just made me want to hit fast forward.<\/p>\n

All these sideshows wouldn’t be so bad if they just made a little more sense, though. In 1,000 pages, you think he\u2019d give in a little and explain what some of the supernatural stuff surrounding the world is. Yes, he goes into what the \u201cLittle People\u201d are, but there are a lot of other things going on, a lot of stuff that seems to just \u201chappen\u201d in hindsight. Certain characters, who and why they are, it gets teased for hundreds of pages, all to end with a note from them saying, Hey, I did what I had to do; I\u2019m leaving the plot now.\u201d Granted, these things helped set the mysterious mood, but their lack of cohesion to the superstructure that is the \u201cLittle People\u201d and the cultish threat behind them leaves you feeling like they\u2019re those weird tourist traps you waste time at when trying to drive cross country. Is that dude a ghost or real? Who knows. Fifty miles to the world\u2019s largest toenail? Fuck it, let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n

I may be nitpicking, but I can only tell Murakami how to be a world renowned writer to a point (I met a guy in JET twice who knows him, so I kinda figure I am two degrees of Murakami; we are totally friends by association, so it\u2019s cool if I give him my feedback). For all its dragging along at some points and lack of mystical cohesion, it\u2019s still very much what you love about Murakami: You feel swallowed up into this alternate 1984 universe. All its characters are perfect in their lack of perfection, the many \u201ccan this be connected to this maybe?\u201d questions that come about when characters talk about such inane things like butterflies, figuring out who juuusst missed running into whom, or did they? It\u2019s all these details that make it worth it, even 800 pages in and reading about someone stretching\u2026again.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re a fan of Murakami and want to go the distance, by all means pick up a copy\u2014now available in a handsome three volume paperback boxed set<\/a>\u2014and have a blast. It\u2019s going to be a long trip, but it\u2019s full of a lot of the wonderful Murakami-isms that you love\/get frustrated with. However, if you\u2019ve yet to be initiated into the cult of Murakami (or as Roland Kelts<\/a> refers to them in his New Yorker<\/em> article, “Harukists<\/a>“), I\u2019d suggest starting elsewhere before going down this more advanced path.<\/p>\n

For more\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>JQ\u00a0magazine book reviews,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>click here<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Roland Kelts, don’t kick me in the balls\u2014 One man’s attempt to review a book honestly while still keeping friends By\u00a0Rick Ambrosio\u00a0(Ibaraki-ken, 2006-08) for JQ magazine. A staple of the\u00a0JET Alumni Association of New York (JETAANY) community, Rick manages their\u00a0Twitter page and is an\u00a0up-for-anything writer. My girlfriend wouldn\u2019t shut up about it. \u201c1Q84 is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,40,291,58,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-books","category-jq-magazine","category-reviews","category-roland-kelts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-7jZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28147"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28150,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28147\/revisions\/28150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}