When Murakami’s 1Q84 was couriered to my office I sat it, unopened, on one side of my desk with the promise that I’d not look at it until I was done with the day’s deadline.

As it was, I didn’t open 1Q84 until some few months afterward. There are numerous reasons for this: my reading backlog of several hundred books and my participation in various reading events and blog tours being amongst them. But if I’m to be candid, the main reason that I didn’t get to the book for so long was that I had a little bit of literary Schroedinger’s cat (or, since we’re talking Murakami, Noburu Watanabe) going on. Until I opened it, I wouldn’t know whether my anticipation was founded or not.

Endeavouring to maintain the spirit of “Read in a Single Sitting” I planned to look at 1Q84 as three separate volumes, but soon realised that this was impossible: the novel sprawls and meanders with little resolution between each of its volumes, and with an overall plot arc that simply seems to peter out–and even the most dedicated Murakami fan will no doubt admit that a rainbow with no end loses its pleasure. So, taking a cue from Murakami, I’ll get it all out in one long, breathless post.

Following excellent works such as The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore (and some admittedly lesser works like Dance Dance Dance) and the result of years undergoing careful translation under the capable hand of Murakami’s preferred translator Jay Rubin, 1Q84 was released with similar fanfare to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But where HP7 allowed a point where Rowling could gracefully bow out from the word of literature should she want to, 1Q84‘s legacy is, I suspect, quite a different one.

Any Murakami reader will be aware that for something to be considered a genuine Murakami work, it must contain the following elements: a lonely middle-aged guy who works a job that involves minimal association with others; a teenaged girl who speaks with a high degree of idiosyncrasy (and who likely smokes Lucky Sevens); various individuals with strange and rarely explained occupations; a number of characters who have died, whether at their own hand or that of another; the consumption of beer and cucumber sandwiches; and some general weirdness involving the breaking down of walls, doors, or other physical objects to allow access to another reality.

For much of his oeuvre, Murakami has muddled about with various permutations of the above to varying degrees of success. There were, however, breakaways from this literary sameism: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore and After Dark demonstrated that Murakami was willing to stretch himself as an author.

But while 1Q84 is the novel that should have marked an important milestone in Murakami’s growth as a writer, something that has been slowly happening in novels such as those mentioned above, it’s instead a thousand page long rehash of his earlier work, and unfortunately without the charm.

1Q84 opens with the enigmatic disorientation so key in any Murakami. Aomame is in a taxi on the way to an important meeting. But hearing the strains of an obscure classical composition on the radio in the taxi she’s travelling in, she realises that not all is as it seems. She asks to be let out of the taxi, and climbs down a flight of stairs, in doing so transitioning from the year 1984 to that of 1Q84 (the Q, we are told, is for “question mark”). Aomame’s meeting is a sinister one, however, and she promptly becomes embroiled in a complex series of events involving religious fanaticism and social predestination.

Meanwhile, would-be author Tengo is called upon to clandestinely rewrite the oddly named novel “Air Chrysalis”, which has been submitted by a strange teenage girl who insinuates that the odd, cult-based goings-on in the novel are drawn from her own experiences. Tengo becomes caught up in the world of this novel, in doing so cementing himself in the slightly canted reality of 1Q84 and inexorably drawing ever closer to Aomame, whom we learn is a childhood friend of Tengo’s.

There are a number of themes at play here: the draw of an alternate life represented by a cult, which is seen in Japan not only in actual cults such as that of the Aum, but also in lifestyles such as “otaku”, where people become obsessively involved in things such as gaming or anime. Isolation within a wider society is also examined in many ways: Tengo lives, by choice, a life of isolation, whereas Aomame ends up being sent into isolation for her own safety. Even the minor characters, such as Aomame’s police officer friend and her employer the dowager, live solitary lives: the police officer is a lone female amongst male colleagues, while the dowager lives in a walled estate. But whenever someone seeks out companionship or a relationship, the results seem always to be negative. We see murders, suicide, violence and continued isolation–a grim commentary on the consequences of seeking a connection with another. Even sex is something that is regimented and soulless, with some characters seeking no-strings-attached sex purely for physical relief, and others finding themselves “paralysed” and entirely without agency while having sex.

Part of what makes this so disconcerting is that karma and fate seem to play a large role in the novel. For example, Tengo and Aomame’s lives are linked by virtue of the fact that they held hands during primary school. This implies to me that their lives are bound to continue down a certain path, no matter what their actions. If this pattern is applied on a wider scale throughout the book, then there’s implication of people’s lives being unassailably linked with violence and other similar experiences. Given how frequently rape and abuse are addressed in this book, this can be a challenging notion.

While thematically 1Q84 offers some interesting (if depressing) fodder, the execution is poor. Perhaps this is partly to do with the fact that Murakami, who has always distanced himself from the Japanese literary canon, tries so overtly to position himself as a western writer, with western cultural references in strange and superfluous abundance. It’s not only the music and cucumber sandwiches that stand out, but also the fact that each of Murakami’s characters seems rather too well-versed in all things Proust and Chekhov. As passing references, these might work, but when multiple pages are given over to an explicit examination of the Chekhov’s gun device, and two characters discuss Proust in depth (over madelines, no less), it’s hard not to begin to wonder whether the audience is the butt of an extended literary joke.

And perhaps it is. As 1Q84‘s characters seek the truth of a manuscript whose subject matter is utterly absurd, merrily slip between dimensions to apply whichever reality allows the novel to press forward (a dimension where it’s possible to walk through doors certainly helps breaking and entering), and wax lyrical about whether Chekhov’s gun should be fired, there’s a topic that the novel frequently touches upon: the fact that the people of Japan have made the strange and demented Air Chrysalis a huge success simply because it’s the cool thing to do. Given that the characters frequently remark on the book’s odd title (the misuse of “chrysalis” vs “cocoon”) and the fact that the reading population will buy anything they’re told to, one can’t help but wonder whether Murakami is making a (very, very long-winded) statement about his readers.

Rating: (not bad)

With thanks to Random House Australia for the review copy

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