1Q84

1) "Janáček composed his little symphony in 1926. He originally wrote the opening as a fanfare for a gymnastics festival. Aomame imagined 1926 Czechoslovakia: The First World War had ended, and the country was freed from the long rule of the Hapsburg Dynasty. As they enjoyed the peaceful respite visiting central Europe, people drank Pilsner beer in cafés and manufactured handsome light machine guns. Two years earlier, in utter obscurity, Franz Kafka had left the world behind. Soon Hitler would come out of nowhere and gobble up this beautiful little country in the blink of an eye, but at the time no one knew what hardships lay in store for them. This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: 'At the time, no one knew what was coming.'"

2) "I'm here, but I'm not here. I'm in two places at once. It goes against Einstein's theorem, but what the hell. Call it the Zen of the killer."

3) "'Hmm. Real life is different from math. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route. For me, math is—how should I put it?—math is all too natural. It's like beautiful scenery. It's just there. There's no need to exchange it with anything else. That's why, when I'm doing math, I sometimes feel I'm turning transparent. And that can be scary.' Fuka-Eri kept looking straight into Tengo's eyes as if she were looking into an empty house with her face pressed up against the glass. Tengo said, 'When I'm writing a story, I use words to transform the surrounding scene into something more natural for me. In other words, I reconstruct it. That way, I can confirm without a doubt that this person known as 'me' exists in the world. This is a totally different process from steeping myself in the world of math.' 'You confirm that you exist,' Fuka-Eri said. 'I can't say I've been one hundred percent successful at it,' Tengo said."

4) "'I am not a professional, or a pervert, just an ordinary citizen. An ordinary citizen who wants nothing more than to have intercourse with a member of the opposite sex. There's nothing special about me. I'm totally normal.'"

5) "'Do you give them names?' Aomame asked, curious. 'Like dogs or cats?' The dowager gave her head a little shake. 'No, I don't give them names, but I can tell one from another by their shapes and patterns. And besides, there wouldn't be much point in giving them names: they die so quickly. These people are your nameless friends for just a little while. I come here every day, say hello to the butterflies, and talk about things with them. When the time comes, though, they just quietly go off and disappear. I'm sure it means they've died, but I can never find their bodies. They don't leave any trace behind. It's as if they've been absorbed by the air. They're dainty little creatures that hardly exist at all: they come out of nowhere, search quietly for a few, limited things, and disappear into nothingness again, perhaps to some other world.'"

6) "Of course, it's all just a hypothesis, Aomame told herself as she walked. But it's the most compelling hypothesis I can produce at the moment. I'll have to act according to this one, I suppose, until a more compelling hypothesis comes along. Otherwise, I could end up being thrown to the ground somewhere. If only for that reason, I'd better give an appropriate name to this new situation in which I find myself. There's a need, too, for a special name in order to distinguish between this present world and the former world in which the police carried old-fashioned revolvers. Even cats and dogs need names. A newly changed world must need one, too. 1Q84—that's what I'll call this new world, Aomame decided. Q is for 'question mark.' A world that bears a question."

7) "Some time had to pass before she was able to grasp what the difference was. And even after she had grasped it, she had to work hard to accept it. What her vision had seized upon, her mind could not easily confirm. There were two moons in the sky—a small moon and a large one. They were floating there side by side. The large one was the usual moon that she had always seen. It was nearly full, and yellow. But there was another moon right next to it. It had an unfamiliar shape. It was somewhat lopsided, and greenish, as though thinly covered with moss."

8) "With his penis still resting on the palm of her hand, Tengo began to speak. 'The story is about me—or about somebody modeled on me.' 'I'm sure it is,' she said. 'Am I in it?' 'No, you're not. I'm in a world that isn't here.' 'So I'm not in the world that isn't here.' 'And not just you. The people who are in this world are not in the world that isn't here.' 'How is the world that isn't here different from this world? Can you tell which world you're in now?' 'Of course I can. I'm the one who's writing it.' 'What I mean is, for people other than you. Say, if I just happened to wander into that world now, could I tell?' 'I think you could,' Tengo said. 'For example, in the world that isn't here, there are two moons. So you can tell the difference.'"

9) "'They have been called by many different names, but in most cases have not been called anything at all. They were simply there. The expression 'Little People' is just an expedient. My daughter called them that when she was very young and brought them with her.' 'Then you became a king.' The man drew a strong breath in through his nose and held it in his lungs for a time before releasing it slowly. 'I am no king. I became one who listens to the voices.' 'And now you are seeking to be slaughtered.' 'No, it need not be a slaughter. This is 1984, and we are in the middle of the big city. There is no need for a brutal, bloody killing. All you have to do is take my life. It can be neat and simple.'"

10) "Outside the window, the thunder-without-lightning rumbled with increased force. Raindrops pelted the glass. The two of them were in an ancient cave—a dark, damp, low-ceilinged cave. Dark beasts and spirits surrounded the entrance. For the briefest instant around her, light and shadow became one. A nameless gust of wind blew through the distant channel. That was the signal. Aomame brought her fist down in one short, precise movement. Everything ended in silence. The beasts and spirits heaved a deep breath, broke up their encirclement, and returned to the depths of a forest that had lost its heart."

11) "Ushikawa left his camera, leaned back against the wall, and looked up at the stained ceiling. Soon everything struck him as empty. He had never felt so utterly alone, never felt the dark to be this intense. He remembered his house back in Chuorinkan, his lawn and his dog, his wife and two daughters, the sunlight shining there. And he thought of the DNA he had given to his daughters, the DNA for a misshapen head and a twisted soul."

12) "His father's passing didn't particularly shock Tengo. He had spent two solid weeks beside his unconscious father. He already felt that his father had accepted his impending death. The doctors weren't able to determine what had put him into a coma, but Tengo knew. His father had simply decided to die, or else had abandoned the will to live any longer. To borrow Kumi's phrase, as a 'single leaf on a tree,' he turned off the light of consciousness, closed the door on any senses, and waited for the change of seasons."

13) "Aomame mourned the deaths of these two friends deeply. It saddened her to think that these women were forever gone from the world. And she mourned their lovely breasts—breasts that had vanished without a trace."

DNF'd because it isn't good and I realized I was only 10% through. I couldn't take another bad Sexual conversation or pedophilic line of thought.

29 year old Tengo has an uncomfortably pedophilic perspective of a 17 year old.

Aomame has very awkward Sexual encounters. Sean Connery's head shape is mentioned many times.

There is a preoccupation with boob size and the shape of women's bodies.

And I quote:

His penis was in fact somewhat larger than normal, though not too large, as advertised. Aomame's expert handling soon made it big and hard. She took off her blouse and skirt.

"I know youre thinking my breasts are small," she said coldly as she looked down at him in her underwear. "You came through with a good-sized cock and all you get in return is these puny things. I bet you feel cheated."'

I love this author's unique introspective style and the matter-of-fact fantasy elements. Very much worth reading.

There are plots that bend and plots that twist. Plots that feel like a roller coaster and plots that are as exciting as riding a stair lift. And then there are plots that feel like you're slowly floating down a river in a shabby boat. The drift is smooth and you can enjoy the surroundings, but at the same time you're anxiously keeping an eye on on the holes that are letting in water, bracing yourself as even the slightest curve may cause your vessel to spiral out of control.

[b:1Q84|10357575|1Q84|Haruki Murakami|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316729331s/10357575.jpg|18160093] is like that. Not that there's anything wrong with it: the slow pace of the novel allows its protagonists to grow on you, while you join their ever-continuing inner voices during what feels like silent observation. By having the reader eavesdrop on these inner voices, [a:Haruki Murakami|3354|Haruki Murakami|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1285812707p2/3354.jpg] can show characters in their complete loneliness, a theme that is central in this magical-realist piece of writing.

The inner voices also allows the reader to witness how both main characters -- Tengo, a writer and math teacher, and Aomame, a fitness instructor and hit woman -- realize that what is seemingly free will (namely their inner thoughts and outer actions) is actually determined by their earlier life stories. The way their lives were written has turned Tengo into a single 30-year old with an Oedipal sex relation, while it has made Aomame hunt down abusive men, while courting old men with thinning hair for one night stands. Still, the opening of the book sees Aomame move off the beaten track (to avoid the traffic jam there) in a move that opens a whole new reality to her. She calls this reality 1Q84, a questionable version of the 1984 in which the story is set.

This is not just a casual nod to [a:George Orwell|3706|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1175614486p2/3706.jpg]'s [b:Nineteen Eighty-Four|5471|Nineteen Eighty-Four|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327892247s/5471.jpg|153313]. At one point, Tengo has to explain what Nineteen Eighty-Four was about and he then focuses on the rewriting work done by the Ministry of Truth. True totalitarianism is dictating a shared world, he seems to say, as it is this shared world that constrains individual freedom. Unknowingly, his own writing does just that: while secretly acting as a ghost writer on a story brought to him a girl who fled from a mysterious cult, reality start to mimic fiction, all the way down to the appearance of a second moon.

It isn't clear whether everybody in Tengo's world sees the two moons, although Aomame, unbeknownst to him -- as he hasn't seen her since they were both 10 years old -- certainly does, once she enters 1Q84. Of course, neither talks about this (explicitly) with anyone else. While it is sort of silly that they don't find a way to slip it into conversation, Tengo and Aomame's fear of having gone mad once again shows that the outside world expects a certain outlook on life. They may have found some freedom by seeing a unique world, but this comes at the price of loneliness, as an unshared reality is a cold one indeed. This is ultimately what drives Tengo and Aomame together -- a love that is explained by the desire to share a reality that is also your own.

Yet where does the strange world of 1Q84 come from? It has something to do with the book that Tengo was ghostwriting, something to do with the mysterious cult and something to do with the so-called Little People, hybrids between Big Brother and the Seven Dwarfs, who seem to be the source of inner (and outer?) voices. They are a medium for creative thought, for construction of a shadow reality, but at the same time they are powerless if that reality is shared (as with Tengo's rewriting) or made manifest (as with Aomame's unborn child). The ambiguity that surrounds the Little People will certainly frustrate some readers, while others will delight in the Lynch-like incomprehensibility they offer. For me, it did both.

1Q84 is laden with complexity, as love, loneliness, free will, authorship, creativity, faith and alienation are all interwoven through many layers of narrative. Although Murakami's prose is dry and at times even flat, he throws around literary references as if he were [a:Umberto Eco|1730|Umberto Eco|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1319590745p2/1730.jpg]. Perhaps these references provide a hint of what the Little People signify: much as they construct their "air chrysales" by picking strands from the air, Murakami connects thematic strands that he picked up from all the novels he enjoyed himself. The ghostwriting that Tengo did is not all that different from authorship in general -- a process of inner speech that brings together the imprints of the outer world. Whether that speech is meaningful or madness is as impossible to ascertain as the reality of the two moons.