1Q84 (Vintage International)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - 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.
Show more
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
The way this book is written has a lot to do with why I rated it high. I really enjoyed the alternating chapters and the way in which the story unfolds. I can honestly say it maintained my interest despite it being quite lengthy.
Show more
This one may have been the oddest thing I've read in a long time - as I described to my family: boy meets girl, boy grows up and becomes writer, girl grows up and becomes assassin, they travel to another dimension... That said, the story was compelling, the characters taught me about Japanese culture vicariously and I truly cared about the plot outcomes. This may have been the best thing I've read in a long time.
Show more
This piece of science fiction was a very lengthy read with talented writing. I did not enjoy the length as my curiosity to complete it drove me more than the plot. I found the progression to be confusing and the continuity to the characters to be weak to finish their storyline.
Show more
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.
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.
Show more
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.