[ed. I've read most of Murakami's books, including 1Q84. As a stylist he's probably as good as anyone, but whenever I finish one of his books I invariably throw my hands up and go "Is that it?" The Atlantic had a pretty good summary a while ago of what a new reader might expect (slightly edited here): Is the novel’s hero an adrift, feckless man in his mid-30s? Does he have a shrewd girl Friday who doubles as his romantic interest? Does the story begin with the inexplicable disappearance of a person close to the narrator? Is there a metaphysical journey to an alternate plane of reality? Are there gratuitous references to Western novels, films, and popular culture? Which eastern-European composer provides the soundtrack, and will enjoy skyrocketing CD sales in the months ahead—Bartók, Prokofiev, Smetana? Are there ominous omens, signifying nothing; dreams that resist interpretation; cryptic mysteries that will never be resolved? Check, check, check and check. In every book. I'm pretty much done with Murakami, which is too bad because I really do enjoy his writing.]
Three days ago, I began to read 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. At 1157 pages, 1Q84 is a mammoth novel, a veritable brick of a book, similar in proportion to the unfinished copy of Infinite Jest that currently rests about 15 feet away from me.
In theory, 1Q84 is a poor choice of book for me right now. After all, 2015 has been a rather mild year for me, in terms of how many books I’ve read. In 2014, I think I read close to 30 books, but this year I’ve only finished 5 or 6 (I’ve partially completed several more).I blame the Internet for this. Or, rather, I blame my own frequent inability to resist the gravity of Twitter or Facebook or Reddit or Instagram or Snapchat. I don’t even want to think about how many books I could have read this year, had my time on social media been replaced by time spent reading books. But, I guess, that’s what I chose to do, so I’ll take responsibility for my actions. I did, at least, manage to read a whole hell of a lot of great essays on the Internet (see this list and this list). (...)
But I’ve digressed somewhat from the intended topic of this essay: Haruki Murakami. Murakami is one such wizard whose works surround me, swallow me, permeate my being, and transport me to worlds that feel no less real than the one in which I’m typing these words.
And so far, his magnum opus, 1Q84, is no exception. As I mentioned earlier, 1Q84 was arguably a poor choice of book for me to begin reading at this time. (...)
So, yes, this renewed tripod of habits is helping me to read more. But that’s not the only catalyst. I correctly suspected that Murakami could draw me back into book-reading because he is a writer who seems unfailingly to write irresistible page-turners. There are a few reasons for this that I can see.
For one, I swear he’s discovered the Platonic ideal combination of steady pacing and incomplete-yet-tantalizing information. Having completed four of his novels now, I can tell you that his novels always seem to revolve around some mystery that needs to be solved, and he does an excellent job of hinting at the grandiose and ominous nature of the mystery within the first few pages, while providing almost no information regarding the mystery’s actual attributes or dimensions. As the novels progress, he gradually reveals the mystery’s shocking, sprawling architecture and all-penetrating implications, dispensing just enough detail at just the right intervals to keep his readers (or, me at least) hopelessly ensnared.
The protagonists in Murakami’s novels tend to be ordinary, solitary people who suddenly find themselves wrapped up in some sort of epic, supernormal circumstances and must undertake a quest that is as much a quest to the heart of their true identity as it is a quest through the external world.
Another trademark of Murakami’s is something I call Blasé Surrealism (let me know if you think of a better name or if one already exists). Blasé Surrealism is characterized by melding mundane, humdrum realism with elements of surrealism and magic realism, while also incorporating (in Murakami’s case, at least) abstract, metaphysical commentary/comparisons intermittently throughout the story. Murakami’s stories are told in a matter-of-fact tone, as if everything that is happening is quite commonplace, and much of it is. But then he’ll nonchalantly introduce a portal to an alternate reality or include a line like, “Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.”
He’s so casual, so blasé, about this, that the flow of the story isn’t interrupted. Strange, surreal things happen in Murakami novels, but they seem completely natural because he acts like they are. The reader just goes right along with him. Thus Murakami manages effectively to marry normal and abnormal, real and surreal, conventional and magical. The best comparison I can make is to say that reading a Murakami novel is like being in a dream, in that things are clearly off, clearly not the way they typically are, and yet one doesn’t really notice or care, accepting things at face-value. This makes for a uniquely mind-stirring, almost psychedelic, reading experience.
by Jordan Bates, Refine the Mind | Read more:
Image: IQ84
