1Q84

De: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator

Narrado por: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

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.

BONUS AUDIO: Audible interviews the translators of 1Q84, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel.

©2011 Haruki Murakami (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"This imaginative, lengthy novel satisfies as a mystery, fantasy, and humorous coming-of-age tale—all blended with the vagaries of love and loss in a dystopia mired in strange cults and mathematical/musical dreamscapes. One surmises that it's no accident that the book's enigmatic title relates to George Orwell's 1984." (AudioFile)

“Profound . . . A multilayered narrative of loyalty and loss . . . A fully articulated vision of a not-quite-nightmare world . . . A big sprawling novel [that] achieves what is perhaps the primary function of literature: to reimagine, to reframe, the world . . . At the center of [1Q84’s] reality . . . is the question of love, of how we find it and how we hold it, and the small fragile connections that sustain us, even (or especially) despite the odds . . . This is a major development in Murakami’s writing . . . A vision, and an act of the imagination.” (David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times)

“1Q84 is one of those books that disappear in your hands, pulling you into its mysteries with such speed and skill that you don’t even notice as the hours tick by and the mountain of pages quietly shrinks . . . I finished 1Q84 one fall evening, and when I set it down, baffled and in awe, I couldn’t help looking out the window to see if just the usual moon hung there or if a second orb had somehow joined it. It turned out that this magical novel did not actually alter reality. Even so, its enigmatic glow makes the world seem a little strange long after you turn the last page. Grade: A.” (Rob Brunner, Entertainment Weekly)

40+ hours of listening

All in all it's a long story that goes nowhere. But while doing so, it keeps you busy listening. I liked to writing. Everything was described extra, extra well. While listening, you feel that you not only learn how to cook what the characters made for dinner but also, what it tasted like.
If you have to paint the walls and ceiling to a whole house, or a coast-to-coast drive back 'n forth, this would be a great book to listen to on the way.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, thou it left a lot of unanswered questions…. But, having said that, maybe, that is what Japanese literature is like?!?

it's a tome

starts slow, gets really interesting and creative, and ends too simplistically. It's a HUGE time investment, but I was determined to finish the thing.

Genius!

I did not know what to expect from this monster book, as I just dove in without any background! It is an amazing feat of fiction, and the performances by the various artists are amazing!

I love exploring new authors and this is my first experience with Haruki Murakami--could not be more impressed!

The sci-fi overtures are limited, as this book is more about human beings and what drives them. The older I get, the more I can relate to many of these complex human themes.

Do not doubt the value of this purchase for a second! Excellent Book!

Not what you might be expecting

If you are looking for a quick paced story, an ingenious magical world or even a good action/adventure that will keep you flipping pages, you need to look elsewhere. This book is a psuedo literary book, meaning that it offers almost none of the traits of modern best sellers with the exception of one item --there is lots of sexual activity with all of the details spelled out.

The book is intentionally slow paced. As you proceed through chapter after chapter of thinly vielled social commentary, the mental/emotional architecture of the two primary characters are revealed. There is little action in the book, but if you like to walk through psycological character development in a literary style (in most chapters), i.e., you have the patiences for it, then you will not be disappointed in the content. Otherwise, you will run out of patience.

The book is a little inconsistent or I would have much higher praise for it. At times, the flow is much like a much lessor work in the style and content of the writing, and the logic falls apart. While its clear the author goes to painful lengths to create realism, at times the twists in the plot seems a bit to convient to be realistic. But then there are times when the writing is exquisite, nearing the style of literary greats that are so often mentioned in the book. I found the language in some passages artfully descriptive and enjoyable, even masterful.

Again, many listeners/readers will loose interest in the book because the pace can be torturously slow. But if you stay focused eventually you will wade through the all of the social commentary and psycological incubation and then you will begin to see something extraordinary beginning to emerge.

As mentioned above, the author has included every twist and turn of the characters sexual activity in great detail. It will seem overdone to many readers. Others may find that it is actually a vital part of understanding the behavior of the characters and the course their actions take as the plot unfolds. Frankly, it all seems a bit uber Freudian regardless of how you measure and access its literary role in the story. One is led to concluded that either the author felt it was necessary to hold the attention of a modern reader (as they pace through an otherwise largely dry intellectual/psycological analysis) i.e., the author thinks we are all obsessed with graphic sex in a 50 shades sort of way, or the author has some interesting interpretaions of his own with respect to how deep psycological issues are manifest in sexual behavior. This aspect of the writing reminds me of Lev Grossman a bit, except that Grossman is much more charming.

Some have referred to the book as belonging to the scify/fantasy genre, but that is very misleading. True, what some refer to as "magical realism" is present in the story, it seem almost hidden under the heavy clouds of psycological development.

Some would say the tale is a complex romance, and while the essencial elements are there, its very understated through out most of the book.

I think the listeners who are comforable with the dryness of complex literary works probably will at least find the story and characters mildly fasinating, and at time the writing well worth the time. At other times, they will be tempted to set it down and wait for it to rippen a bit more like a piece of fruit picked a bit early (if only that worked with books).

Other listeners will through in the towel after a few chapters unless they find the descriptons of the sexual scenes tasty enough to keep them flipping pages. Nah-- most adults will probably not even find the sex that titalating because of the matter of fact descriptions.

Clearly, the author is brilliant and has deeply considered great writing and the human experience, and that comes through in his character development. He does not shy away from exploring some of the darker aspects of the human experience.

A quick note on the performance. While the actors (male and female) are interesting to listen to, they both seem to interpret the charcters and project the voice inflections much different than what seems intuitive to me. They are both a bit flat at times, especially the male voice. I picture Tango as a bit more dimentional and certainly with a broader emotional range than what comes through in the actor's interpretation in many chapters.

Best wishes and peaceful listening.

Imaginative, somehow mixed with literary Realism

I... have struggled for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to start a review for this book. From a purely imaginative point of view, this is a really nice story. And the narration is pretty good. The translation holds steady, even though two different translators worked on the 3 sub-books that comprise the story.

But... I have no idea what 1984 has to do with any of this. It could have been set in any year at all, provided some contextual details were altered. The tie into 1984's name adds nothing to this story. I don't even really know what the book is about, having finished it. First and foremost, I suppose it's just a love story from the characters' childhoods, told through some distorted reality. I loved the insane pieces of the 1Q84 world, but they lead nowhere. As if to reinforce this point, the last we hear of 1Q84 is the same old events happening all over again, while the characters return home and the story ends.

The author, even withstanding translation, has a superb talent with similes. Some of them get a little fluffy, but most are so accurate at making you feel the correct way about a subject that you really do see something from the character's perspective. It's a building appreciation that makes the characters worthy of your sympathy.

However, a lot of effort seems to have gone into making the story just go on and on for the sake of having just one more "close one". I think I was pretty tolerant and willing to go along with it, but there were some points near the end where I was unsure what the author was trying to accomplish anymore. Again, I'm really open minded and willing, but I just don't know what the point was before it was clear the author just decided to wrap things up.

In the end, this story doesn't make me want to look into the author's other works. I'm just as neutral about them before as I am now. It was an interesting experience. I guess I just wanted some more substance to the larger story. The storyline was practical enough, just not backed by any undeniably clear purpose. In that way, this story has more roots in Realism as a genre, providing that the story actually takes place in a fantasy-enhanced setting. There is romance and danger, but the larger story is traditional and unwavering in its goal to shadow the characters and have you witness their extreme caution, before it finally just unites them and sends them off into a sunrise.