1Q84

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

Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett

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 realises, 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 Ltd

Critic reviews

"It is a work of maddening brilliance and gripping originality, deceptively casual in style...vibrating with wit, intellect and ambition." ( The Times)

"Eerie, suspenseful and packed full of gorgeous ordinary details and provocative extraordinary events...funny, fresh and intensely surreal. Unmissable." ( Marie Claire)

How many loose ends can one book have???

Would you try another book from the authors and/or the narrators?

The story sets up so many intriguing scenarios that you want to keep reading, the female role was completely repetitive and annoying at times but it was still enough to keep on. It was on the verge of becoming an intricately bound novel with multiple layers, instead it fell flat in almost all plot lines, Characters appear & disappear,they suggest a larger story which is then left mostly untouched, yes there are 2 moons we get it!.I got to the end and went back through the book again to see if I missed any chapters?????

Has 1Q84 turned you off from other books in this genre?

no

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The ability to finish, far to long and repetitive in the main points.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

no

Take your time to listen to this book

At first I could not stop listening to the book, but addy some point I lost track and had to take a break. However even after not listening to this book for some time, getting back into it was easy.

Save yourself the effort

Ridiculously and unnecessary long and incredibly repetitive in the descriptive. The story line leaves a lot to be desired.

Frustratingly long, disappointed.

This book is not for the faint of heart, and I knew going in that it was polarising - people seem to either love it or really dislike it. I tend to only review books that disappoint me, which this did. It’s not bad, just disappointing. I will be a little vague here to try to avoid spoilers but I may not succeed so please proceed with caution. My biggest disappointment is that the author is obviously a talented writer and the book has just enough in it to keep you going, but not enough to justify the length. I kept waiting for the story to build up beyond the basic plot outlined in the earlier parts and that didn’t really happen. An additional character comes into the story later that adds much needed tension but it felt like a bit of an afterthought - so it helped keep things moving but then went nowhere. Other reviews mention the many unanswered questions but I’m ok with that generally in stories like this, I like using my imagination and reflecting on the meaning of something even after I have finished a story. However in this story there are things introduced that both go unexplained and also aren’t really referenced or important to the storyline. These also feel like an afterthought, added to add spice, but it falls flat. Full marks to all three narrators, though I listened at slightly different playback speeds for different sections for my own comfort (1.25x for the two male narrators and 1.5x for the female narrator). And I listened to the last 10 hours or so at 2x speed just to get it done, which is a story issue not a narration issue.