1Q84: Book Two by Haruki Murakami

Title: 1Q84: Book Two
Author: Haruki Murakami
Translators: Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel
Publisher: VintageISBN: 978-4103534235
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: (Book two): 284



Nightflier Speaks:

I finished all 3 volumes last weekend. I am still living in the world created in 1Q84. Such is the effect of Murakami's writing. And well, I still visit the world of the wind up bird chronicle, the only other Murakami book I have read. So the books make you climb in their world and make you want to live there. What. An. Achievement. For any writer this is a feat. And for any book lover its a treat.

So without getting into any more Murakami praise, I will stick to task at hand i.e. trying to review the book.
Book 2 is essentially a love story, of Aomame (uh-oh-mah-me) and Tengo. They are trying to find each other after the intial premise setup in book one. Do they really meet and how entangled their reality is best left to the reading experience. In the process, Murakami takes the concepts/ideas in book one, 'little people' 'air chrysalis' 'other world' to the metaphysical level. Even if interpretations are best left to the imagination, I am really looking forward to discuss these ideas with someone, who has read the book and will not call me insane.

Parallel universe is a reality in this book. True to Murakami writing, it has all pop cultural references that even a non-japanese reader can easily relate to. There is a recurring reference to 'The Thomas Crown Affair' and I felt strangely nostalgic. Not just that the peculiar music that keeps on playing in Aomame and Tengo's lives, their music taste, the attention to detail in these descriptions is just mind blowing. If there is one thing that constantly impresses me about Murakami's writing (hey! I am already a fan!) is his this very ability. He compels you to look at day to day objects/things/occurrences with minute and open eyes. Since last weekend I am looking at the moon every night. The moon which has a special significance in Aomame and Tengo's story.

In this book, a lot is told about Tengo's personal life, his relationship with his estranged father, his thoughts about his mother. As Tengo is exploring his own life, we journey with him, finding out one detail at a time. Light is thrown on the bestseller book that Fuka-Eri wrote and Tengo ghost-wrote. The sense of mystic around Fuka-Eri and her background continues. The reader gets to journey through Japan as well. I think for all these reasons Murakami is the best Japanese ambassador out there.

I will agree with Vivek by questioning the difficulty of reviewing a Murakami book and try to end this futile attempt. With my limited life experiences, I can only say, Murakami's books should be savored by every fiction lover. One should enter his worlds and then look at her surroundings. And then ask in which year they really live.

Rating: 5/5

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

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NORWEGIAN WOOD: Fiction

AUTHOR: Haruki Murakami

BEST SELLERS(S): 1Q84 (Read the Review of Book 1 by Vivek Tejuja here), Kafka on the Shore, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Dance Dance Dance, The Elephant Vanishes, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and many more. Murakami has been praised by The Guardian as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his works and achievements. 

SYNOPSIS: 

When he hears her favorite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love, Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

EXCERPT: 

'Where was I now?'

Gripping the receiver, I raised my head and turned to see what lay beyond the phone box. Where was I now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again I called out for Midori from the dead centre of this place that was no place.

MSM Speaks: This was my first Murakami novel, recommended by a dear friend. I've read Japanese stuff before,but was a bit intimidated with the whole reputation as a novelist that Murakami has. It was a tough task to read the book as I had too many mental blocks and inhibitions. However, there was a moment when I let go of all the shackles and then, reading became an experience. I cannot forget the impression his words left on me.

It is about the student life of Toru Watanabe, who is someone, hovering around the edges of an event and never in the middle of it, but when Naoko, the girlfriend of his dead best friend comes to his life, his feelings are in a mess. She is fragile and he is her only support. Eventually, Toru comes to term with Naoko's presence around him, like breathing. He meets different people during his stay in Tokyo, sleeps around with girls he doesn't remember the next day, seeking something that he knows, is forbidden but which only Naoko can give him.


Life seems to be stuck, when over enthusiastic and curios girl, Midori walks right into his life without any preamble. Meanwhile, Naoko has abandoned the civilization and is under treatment, when Toru meets her and realizes that she loves him as well. But eventually, Toru also wants the ever cheerful, daring and brave Midori, to color his gray, dull life. 

Murakami puts the reader in a constant swing of emotions which appear simplistic but are far more complicated. The mind of a young man and the people he meets, makes the reader feel like an observer. There were times in the book, when I did not understand where the writer intended the protagonist to go. But suddenly the pace gets fast and I am unable to keep the book down. It's needless to say, I felt like I lost a part of me when the book finished. A serious undertone but the superficiality of a young life - Norwegian Wood, worth a million reads! MSM recommends!


My rating: 5/5 *Brilliant Read*

Norwegian Wood@ Vintage Books 2010
ISBN: 978-0-099-554547
flipkart price: 269/-INR