MostlyFiction Book Reviews » Haruki Murakami We Love to Read! Wed, 14 May 2014 13:06:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami /2011/1q84-by-haruki-murakami/ /2011/1q84-by-haruki-murakami/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:37:21 +0000 /?p=22307 Book Quote:

“That’s it. 1984 and 1Q84 are fundamentally the same in terms of how they work. If you don’t believe in the world, and if there is no love in it, then everything is phony. No matter which world we are talking about, no matter what kind of world we are talking about, the line separating fact from hypothesis is practically invisible to the eye. It can only be seen with the inner eye, the eye of the mind.”

Book Review:

Review by Devon Shepherd  (DEC 31, 2011)

Haruki Murakami doesn’t lend himself to easy categorization. Though his prose is spare, almost styleless, it’s more supple than muscular, and though his stories are often occupied with mundane domesticities, they’re also often founded in the surreal. It’s no surprise, then, that Murakami’s long-awaited latest, 1Q84, isn’t easy to shelf –it’s at home among either fantasy, thriller or hard-boiled noir – but one thing’s for sure: this book is grotesquely Murakami. That is, quiet domesticity punctuates adventures tenuously connected to reality, and yet for all its faults – and some have argued there are many – this is a book that haunts you long after you’re done, a book that, like a jealous lover, won’t let you move on.

For all its parallel worlds and magical creatures, for all its anonymous sex and ruthless violence, this is a book about love. The lovers in question, Tengo and Aomame, haven’t seen or spoken to each other in almost 20 years. In fact, they may have never spoken at all. Their shared history is limited to a 5th grade incident during which a ten-year-old Aomame reached for Tengo’s hand – and stilled his soul. But for Tengo, a popular athlete and academic star, to befriend Aomame, a religious freak who stands up and shouts a version of the Lord’s Prayer before she eats lunch, would’ve been social suicide. Aomame transfers schools before Tengo acknowledges to himself what she means to him.

Twenty years pass – it’s 1984 – and Tengo, considered a math prodigy, has frittered away his promise: he teaches math at a Tokyo cram school while moonlighting as a novelist. Though he has weekly sex with a married girlfriend, he still wonders about Aomame.

Disowned by her family for breaking with their church, the Society of Witnesses, Aomame is a lone-wolf. She works as a fitness instructor at a swanky Tokyo gym and although she trolls for wild one-night stands, her heart, after all these years, still belongs to Tengo. As it turns out, she moonlights too –as an assassin. Under the auspices of a wealthy and mysterious dowager, Aomame, with a method of her own invention, kills wife-beaters and rapists.

The Tengo-Aomame attachment – their love itself – is absurd, and this absurdity calls into existence a strange alternative world – 1Q84, the world with a question mark – with a second, “moss-green” moon. Ostensibly, Aomame enters this alternate world, like Alice down the rabbit hole, when she escapes a gridlocked Metropolitan expressway by climbing down an emergency stairwell. But it’s Tengo, in ghost-writing the best-seller, Air Chryaslis, or perhaps in writing a novel of his own, that opens that portal. What has brought Tengo into 1Q84 isn’t entirely clear – although his skill as a storyteller is a factor – but, unbeknownst to the other, both are trapped in 1Q84, a world that becomes increasingly perilous.

When Komatsu, Tengo’s editor, suggests Tengo rewrite a manuscript submission, a fantastical, but compelling story, told in substandard prose, Tengo is hesitant. The author, a strange and beautiful 17-year old girl, who goes by the name of Fuka-Eri, insists that her story, a tale about Little People who emerge from the mouth of a goat and weave wombs out of strands of reality, is true. The Little People use these wombs, or air chrysalises, to gestate doubles, or dohtas. The dohtas act like antennas of sorts, receivers for the perceivers of “the voice.” Fuka-Eri has no literary ambitions and gives Tengo permission to rewrite her work.

But when Air Chrysalis is a runaway hit, a powerful and mysterious cult, Sakigake, is angered. Although most people read the book as fantasy, Sakigake maintains that Fuka-Eri, the estranged daughter of their mysterious Leader, has revealed sacred truths not meant for outsiders. It seems they’ll stop at nothing to halt publication, but when their Leader is found dead, Sakigake must devote itself to finding his murderer.

As it turns out, the Leader is suspected of raping pre-pubescent girls, Fuka-Eri, his daughter, among them. The dowager charges Aomame with dispatching the Leader to “the other side,” but when he demonstrates his supernatural powers, Aomame becomes conflicted and confused. A telepath, the Leader knows Aomame’s intention, but the cost of his great gift is excruciating pain. The Leader welcomes death, and when Aomame hesitates, he bargains with her: his death for Tengo’s life. Unfortunately, killing the Leader will likely mean Aomame’s death too. But, in sacrificing her life for Tengo’s, their connection inexplicably tightens, and the danger Aomame flees inadvertently flings them together.

1Q84 is possible because of faith. It is the belief in love, in something beyond reason, something magical, that creates the metaphysical space for impossibilities to actualize themselves. Born from air chrysalises, dohtas are affectless shadows, without desires or dreams of their own. But we only need look around us, at the “hunched over people carried by force of habit into the new day” to see that it’s all too easy to lose your dreams and desires to the monotony of everyday life, individual passions and secret hopes lost to the roles we play – father, mother, teacher, banker – unaware that if you stop and look up, you might just see two moons. Of course, the real problem, as Tengo and Aomame figure out, is not the revelation of the magical, but how to steal a bit of that wonder up the rabbit hole, to the mundane world of day jobs and traffic jams.

Murakami shirks conventional expectations, refusing to answer the questions he poses and tie his loose ends into pretty little bows. He breaks from craft wisdom – stick to the essentials – with gratuitous descriptions and his characters repeatedly mull over the same plot points. He even challenges Chekov’s famous maxim by introducing a gun that never goes off. But I can’t help but feel that’s the point; life isn’t pared down to essentials, and insofar as our lives have meaning, they’re necessarily narratives, stories just as mundane – and hopefully just as magical, if not as fantastical – as this one.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 514 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf; First Edition edition (October 25, 2011)
REVIEWER: Devon Shepherd
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Haruki Murakami
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

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]]> /2011/1q84-by-haruki-murakami/feed/ 1 WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING by Haruki Murakami /2011/what-i-talk-about-when-i-talk-about-running-by-haruki-murakami/ /2011/what-i-talk-about-when-i-talk-about-running-by-haruki-murakami/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 23:06:17 +0000 /?p=21773 Book Quote:

“People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life – and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.”

Book Review:

Review by Devon Shepherd  (OCT 23, 2011)

In his running journal-cum-memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, titled in obvious homage to Raymond Carver, Haruki Murakami claims that “people basically become runners because they’re meant to” –I know exactly what he means. Runners are different; if only for the fact they think nothing of doubling up socks to run in 20-degree weather while incredulous spouses look on; they brave downpours for the bliss of having paths to themselves; they passionately debate the relative merits of Body Glide vs. Vaseline, bare feet vs. high-tech shoes, real food vs. GU gels. Runners know it’s possible, even enjoyable, to be alone for hours, pushing themselves “to acquire a void” and these quirks of temperament are often enough to form a bond with other distance runners.

Last winter, here in New York, I only cancelled one scheduled run due to the weather which meant I was out in Central Park in rain and hail and snow, passing the same brave souls every day. On a bitterly bleak run, a smile or a nod of acknowledgment was enough to warm those December mornings. On the flipside, summer arrived and I was then having difficulty acclimatizing myself to the heat, and on a particular arduous day, when day’s high was nearing 100F, an older gentleman and fellow runner, passed me with an encouraging shout: “You’re going to do more than finish; you’re going to win.” The kindness of this stranger brought a smile to my face, and although when I run my first marathon here in New York in November, I’ll be far behind the winners, I will be among a group of very special people taking over the streets: runners.

To those who can relate to the above: I highly recommend this book. To fans of Murakami, or those generally interested in writer’s biographies, I have to be more reserved.

Although Murakami describes himself as a mid-pack runner, somewhere between the “energetic ones . . .slicing through the air like they had robbers at their heels” and the “overweight” ones “[huffing] and [puffing], their eyes half-closed, their shoulders slumped like this was the last thing in the world they wanted to be doing,” he is, by most standards, an accomplished runner. After taking up running in 1982, at the age of 33, Murakami has run, on average, one marathon a year – bringing his total to 23 in 2005 when he wrote most of the book. He has also completed a 62-mile ultra-marathon (his time: 11 hours, 42 minutes), a wonderful account of which is included in the book, and six triathlons. Murakami has also been fortunate enough to run races that are on many runners’ bucket lists– Boston, New York, Honolulu, Athens – and an excerpt of an article he wrote chronicling his re-creation of the first marathon, from Athens to Marathon (aptly enough, Murakami’s first marathon), is as inspiring as it is harrowing – I got thirsty just reading it.

But this is first and foremost a runner’s journal. Chapters are structured as discrete journal entries, most dated between 2005 and 2006 – the ultramarathon entry is dated 1997; the excerpted Athens article is from 1983. Consequently, the style is casual, conversational, and for those used to Murakami’s subtly layered narratives, the looseness of the prose might be disappointing. However, perhaps the biggest problem with the book is the lack of focus on Murakami, the writer.

To be fair, Murakami readily admits, this is a book about what “running has meant to [him] as a person” rather than a writer’s memoir. But while, Murakami draws parallels between the “focus” and “endurance” required by both runners and writers, and says that “most of what [he knows] about writing [he’s] learned through running everyday,” I couldn’t help but feel that while he was able to write honestly about his failures as an athlete and the limitations of his aging body (Murakami is 62), he was less candid in describing his life as a writer. Such creative descriptions of his struggles as a runner (at one point he likens his mind to Danton and Robespierre and his body to the rebellious Revolutionary Tribunal) only whetted my appetite for similar descriptions of his struggles as a writer.

Lest you think I’m a sadist, let me clarify. Murakami tells of his experience interviewing the former Olympian, Toshihiko Seko. Murakami asked Seko if he ever experienced days when he just didn’t feel like running. Seko ,“in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, ‘Of course. All the time!’ ” What Murakami was trying to discover with his inane question was “whether, despite beings worlds apart in terms of strength, the amount we can exercise and motivation, when we lace up our running shoes early in the morning we feel exactly the same way” and concluded that “In the final analysis we’re all same [sic].” I wanted Murakami to ask a similarly inane question of himself about his writing, because I, as an aspiring novelist, would too like to know if in the final analysis, we’re all the same.

That is why writers read writers’ biographies. We look for personality quirks or life experiences we can identify with. We’re comforted by tales of hardship and rejection, hoping that if we persevere, our day, too will come. Murakami started running around the time he started writing, at the age of 32. As the owner of a jazz bar, he worked long hours. Without any previous literary ambitions, he remembers the exact moment he first had the idea to write a novel: around 1:30pm April 1, 1978. He was at Jingu Stadium watching a baseball game, when the thought struck him: “You know what? I could try writing a novel.” From that day on, he wrote at the kitchen table after he got home from the bar until he got sleepy. This first novel, published as Hear The Wind Sing won a literary contest and started Murakami on his career as a writer. Eventually, Murakami sold his bar, and took the plunge to writing full-time, devoting himself to writing more serious novels.

The trouble is: Murakami’s breezy accounting of his career path reads as glib after the detailed accounts of how salt caked his body in Athens, or of how his feet swelled so much he had to switch his shoes for a bigger size during the ultra-marathon. Writing is as a difficult as distance running, and for all his well-deserved literary success, Murakami has also experienced the literary equivalent of aching legs, slowing times, and embarrassing disqualifications. It’s unfortunate that he chose not share them.
While I suspect it will mostly appeal to runners, far be it for me to discourage people from picking up this book. While Murakami admits that he is not out to proselytize on the physical and psychological benefits of running, “still, some might read this book and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to give running a try,’ and then discover that they enjoy it. And of course that would be a beautiful thing.” A beautiful thing, indeed.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 189 readers
PUBLISHER: Vintage; Reprint edition (August 11, 2009)
REVIEWER: Devon Shepherd
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Haruki Murakami
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

 

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