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We are in the thick of winter here in the Pacific Northwest, which means it's dark, damp, and chilly. Rather than escaping to stories with warmer, brighter climates, I personally want nothing more than to dive deep into gothic and uncanny fiction as the wind rattles my windows at night...
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1Q84

by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin, Philip Gabriel
1Q84

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780307476463
ISBN10: 0307476464



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Staff Pick

Murakami is a master at producing questions. The worldbuilding of each and every story he crafts never fails to prod my curiosity. Befitting the epic length and the title of this book, 1Q84 is packed full of questions. It's an endless barrage of surreal events and ideas that spiral through your brain. I took so much pleasure in becoming lost in the mysteries and foundations of this new, parallel world. The two main characters in this narrative, Tengo and Aomame, have extremely engaging, and vastly different, stories to tell. I loved following them as they sought to answer their own questions in an increasingly fantastical and frightening world.  Recommended By Jun L., Powells.com

Part of the thrill was the anticipation. After waiting for over a year for its publication, I grabbed 1Q84 and swallowed it whole. While it read simply and progressed slowly, it filled like a three-course meal. Being a long-term Murakami fan, I have seen the same themes and images reworked and woven into a variety of dreamlike states. This novel revisits the innocence of Norwegian Wood, but its mild-manneredness tricks the reader into believing it is a simple love story. Instead, Murakami gradually reveals the sinister nature of his characters and entwines the dance of love with the act of murder. Recommended By Moses M., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

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.

Review

“Murakami is like a magician who explains what he’s doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers....But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves.” The New York Times Book Review

Review

"Once you start reading 1Q84, you won't want to do much else until you've finished it. Murakami possesses many gifts, but chief among them is an almost preternatural gift for suspenseful storytelling....Despite its great length, Murakami's novel is tightly plotted, without fat, and he knows how to make dialogue, even philosophical dialogue, exciting....There's no question about the sheer enjoyability of this gigantic novel, both as an eerie thriller and as a moving love story....I read the book in three days and have been thinking about it ever since." Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

Review

"A book that...makes you marvel, reading it, at all the strange folds a single human brain can hold....A grand, third-person, all encompassing meganovel. It is a book full of anger and violence and disaster and weird sex and strange new realities, a book that seems to want to hold all of Japan inside of it....Murakami has established himself as the unofficial laureate of Japan — arguably its chief imaginative ambassador, in any medium, to the world: the primary source, for many millions of readers, of the texture and shape of his native country....I was surprised to discover, after so many surprising books, that he managed to surprise me again." New York Times Magazine

Review

"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." Los Angeles Times

Review

"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. Entertainment Weekly

Review

"[A] masterwork...[Murakami has] crafted what may well become a classic literary rendering of pre-2011 Japan....Orwell wrote his masterpiece to reflect a future dystopia through a Cold War lens....Similarly, Murakami's 1Q84 captures attitudes and circumstances that characterize Japanese life before the March earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster. Reading 1Q84, once can't help but sense already how things have changed." Cleveland Plain Dealer

Review

“[1Q84] is fundamentally different from its predecessors. We realize before long that it is a road. And what the writer has laid down is a yellow brick road. It passes over stretches of deadly desert, to be sure, through strands of somniferous poppies, and past creatures that hurl their heads, spattering us with spills of kinked enigma. But the destination draws us: We crave it, and the craving intensifies as we go along (unlike so many contemporary novels that are sampler menus with neither main course nor appetite to follow). More important, the travelers we encounter, odd and wildly disparate as they are, possess a quality hard to find in Murakami’s previous novels: a rounded, sometimes improbable humanity with as much allure as mystery. It is not just puzzlement they present, but puzzled tenderness; most of all in the two leading figures, Aomame and Tengo. Converging through all manner of subplot and peril, they arouse a desire in us that almost mirrors their own....Murakami makes us want to follow them; we are reluctant to relinquish them. Who would care about the yellow brick road without Scarecrow’s, Woodman’s and Lion’s freakiness and yearning? What is a road, particularly Murakami’s intricately convoluted road, without its human wayfarers?” Richard Eder, The Boston Globe

About the Author

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than forty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.

4.3 12

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 4.3 (12 comments)

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Jeffrey Bluhm , July 19, 2020 (view all comments by Jeffrey Bluhm)
Fairly substantial undertaking for my first Murakami book (the trade paperback clocks in at 1157 pages) that wasn't overtly disappointing, but also doesn't inspire me to explore any of his other works. Being a translated work may impact the flow of the language and, thus, the richness of the prose, but dialogue, for example, is not only stilted but also often repetitive in a way that suggests the original would be the same. Conversely, I presume it being a translated work accounts for some of the more amusing phrasing. I liked the combination of fantasy elements with a contemporary reality. The plot moves along well for much of the book, but seems to slow noticeably in the last 1/4. Unfortunately, there were a number of loose ends, including major characters who just disappeared from the story line with little explanation and less sense. Overall, it was a worthwhile read, but not one to inspire interest in revisiting it in the future (back to Powells with this copy) or passion for more Murakami.

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Stephen Lee , April 12, 2015 (view all comments by Stephen Lee)
First of all I must say that one of my many ' dream bucket' scenarios would be thus.. We are sitting at a small glass topped table at an outdoor cafe eating whatever delicacy, sipping wine and trading stories as if they were currency. Haruki would be caught within a story within a story and I would be nodding, smiling and gesturing for another bottle of wine. Okay, that's enough. I love anything he does and this certainly didn't do anything to diminish my profound respect for a great writer. If you haven't read Mr. Murakami begin with Norwegian Wood and then, then begin your journey into a surreal landscape of beauty and struggle that always plucks at the chords of our own human experience. In IQ84 at one point I began laughing because a man and woman who are caught in an alternate reality, lost to each other and following their own labyrinthine journey back or forward to each other, reminded me of story that I'd share with Haruki at that outdoor cafe. He is simply unique and brilliant. Try him!

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Adena , March 23, 2015 (view all comments by Adena)
This book was heartbreakingly beautiful and magical. It is a long book, but worth every minute.

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carlsfrog , October 26, 2014 (view all comments by carlsfrog)
A very good, if very Asian and surrealistic novel. Well worth the read and the price as you follow the primary characters and their backups through a convoluted multi-worldly adventure/mystery.

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Jesse Rice-Evans , October 23, 2014
Makes a great bookend for chapbooks etc. Startling and decorative!

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Prismatic , October 23, 2014
Despite its length, this is a tightly written novel in the genre known as "magical realism." At the start it consists of two separate narrative threads that alternate, but seem unconnected. As the two stories progress, they begin to come together in a fascinating way. The plot is too good to reveal even with the slightest hint in a review, but few readers will be disappointed. As obscure and eccentric as it may seem at times, the novel reflects back on itself and the entire narrative becomes a metaphor for the creative act of writing. This is Murakami at his very finest�"a mystery, a love story, and a philosophical novel all in one.

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Endel Bendel , October 23, 2014
Overwritten. Tedious. Murakami has lost his touch.

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Daniel Pope , October 21, 2014
A whale of a book, in both size and bang for your buck. Murakami tells the story of an alternate 1984, where there are two moons in the sky and a nefarious group of "little people" (only about a foot high) appear from the mouth of a dead goat and cause evil to come into this world. Murakami's imagination is always a marvel to behold, but he's particularly inventive in this novel. After being immersed in the book for about a month, I had to check the sky above my head to see how many moons were up there.

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W S Krauss , June 21, 2014 (view all comments by W S Krauss)
1Q84 crosses genres. It is a love story, speculative fiction and fantasy. The two main characters meet briefly as children and affect each other's lives until they finally meet again. That said, there is a very long road to travel before they see each other again. Aomame stumbles into a parallel world she names 1Q84. Tengo is called upon by a friend in the publishing industry to edit a story written by a high school girl for entrance into a literary contest. These actions create a cascade of events that lead the characters to each other. It is an astonishing book, full of themes and imagery. I enjoyed this book immensely and see why it is being called Murakami's masterpiece.

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h , July 05, 2013 (view all comments by h)
This novel is for those who are already Murakami devotees, and not only because it's ~1200 pages. The story itself envelops you, but the laconic prose might turn off those who don't already know how the author builds worlds. It's a generic hybrid of love story, detective story, and mystery-laced fantasy. It's divided into 3 books (that were separately released in Japan) with each chapter oscillating between two characters. In the 3rd book, a 3rd character becomes the focus of chapters. This was an unwelcome change to the narrative pacing.

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DAM , January 31, 2013
This book is an amazing journey with someone who is able to connect with his imagination in a way that I've never before seen. With Murakami at the wheel, each time the plot takes another bizarre turn, I felt, not confused or lost, but like I had just taken another breath-taking tight corner in a fast-moving Porsche!

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tamara.gurevich , January 30, 2013
The narrators voice seemed to follow me around when I wasn't reading. Even though it is quite a tome, It held my attention all the way through. Now I'm craving more books that makes me 'think' in the authors voice.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780307476463
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
01/22/2013
Publisher:
VINTAGE BOOKS
Series info:
Vintage International
Pages:
1157
Height:
2.10IN
Width:
5.20IN
Thickness:
2.00
Author:
Haruki Murakami
Translator:
Philip Gabriel
Translator:
Jay Rubin
Media Run Time:
B
Subject:
Literature-A to Z

Ships free on qualified orders.
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This title in other editions

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