1Q84

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

Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett

Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

Critic reviews

"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)

A surround sound encelopment of description.

I enjoyed the effective description of the environment. It us a full contact reality of sights and sounds.

Interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling

I enjoyed the book all the way through, but I found that it left a lot of things unresolved, and that was frustrating.

Such a strange book

This book was extremely long, and it ends somewhat abruptly (is a fourth book planned?). I wonder if this is the kind of book where if you grow up in Japan, some of the stuff that doesn't necessarily make sense to me would make sense. But it's also just so strange. I couldn't even begin to tell you what the plot is, even after finishing it. I didn't love it, but I definitely didn't hate it. I think it was absolutely worth my time. My interest occasionally waned, but he always got me back.

However, I'll echo the sentiments of some of the people who said it was unnecessarily repetitive. The person in the reviews who wrote the impression of the dialogue is hilarious and spot on.

One thing I should add is the readers were fantastic. You have two narrators for a majority of the story, and both had really nice voices, and I never found myself annoyed at anything they did. The third persons voice was not as pleasant, but that was also fitting with the character.

A long story

I love the concept and the details but this book takes a very, very long time to get anywhere.

A Great Reread

I know a lot of people who for one reason or another are put off by 1Q84, even if they enjoy other works by Murakami. I am not one of those people, and I’ve enjoyed this strange book since I first read it some six or so years ago!

Obviously, it’s a long book, and a fair chunk is seemingly quite repetitive; but, if you think of the work not as something that only sprang from the pen of the author, but as a record of the events taking place within and between characters, I find that eases the repetitiveness. People discover things at different rates, and when we think about things we often go over and over them again in our minds. If you’re looking for a streamlined work, you won’t find it here. But that’s kind of the point.

This is a fantastic story about Love, what makes life worth living, the capacity of humanity to transcend its rationalistic shackles, and so so much more. Highly recommended.

This performance by all narrators is exceptional as well!

This book isn't for everyone

But it was for me. It might be for you too if you enjoy getting lost in a Japanese book that's difficult to classify into a single genre. I loved this book and I was sad when it ended because it felt like I had to say goodbye to my new friends Aomame and Tengo.

Strong performances by all narrators but especially Allison Hiroto who is quickly becoming one of my favorites.

Beautifully bizarre

Teeters joyfully on the edge of realism and surrealism. The story was very fresh to me, unlike anything else I’d read before. I was surprised to have so quickly breezed through what would seem to be a daunting volume of 1100+ pages. I wouldn’t have minded at all had it continued on. I’m officially a Murakami fan!

Great story

**warning** There are some sex scenes with girls that are under 18, which is legal where the author is from. Other than that. I loved this story all the way through. Even though it's 46 hrs. It really felt like a 2 or 3 day listen (actual time was spread over 2 weeks). I do wish there was a little more to the ending, and a little more to the cat town story. But overall it was worth it.

Good story, too much detail.

I loved the story, the narration is good but sometimes got tired listening the description of each detail, and thought I will never finish the books.

An interesting take on fantasy and opportunity

I loved the experience of reading this book. loved the characters and getting immersed in a world. The prose is modern and still beautiful and lingers just long enough to give as much weight as needed for an image. The ending took me out of it a little bit but I'm not sure why. Really proud of finishing it and really grateful to have read it.