1Q84

1Q84 is a long novel, and it took me almost two months to read it, but not because it was a slog; it was the opposite--I read it slowly to savor every nuance of the intricate story, and every word of Haruki Murakami's beautiful language.

To summarize the book takes some doing. Basically, it is the story of two star-crossed lovers, and their chapters alternate throughout the book. We begin with Aomame (a name that means "garden pea"), a fitness instructor. At the outset, she is in a cab that's struck in a traffic jam on an elevated highway. The cab driver suggests she get out and take an emergency stairway. After doing so, she finds herself in an alternate world. The year she left was 1984; she calls her new world 1Q84. One tip off that she's in a new world is that there are now two moons in the sky.

Tengo Kanawa is a mild-mannered math teacher and aspiring writer. He's never had anything published, but has come close to winning a writer's contest, so is friendly with an editor, Komatsu. That editor comes to him with a proposition--an entry in this year's contest is terrifically inventive, but awkwardly written. He wants Tengo to rewrite it. The original writer is a 17-year-old girl, Fuka-Eri, who agrees to the scheme, and Tengo agrees to do it as well, despite his ethical objections.

That book, called The Air Chrysalis, will become the linchpin upon which the novel turns. Fuka-Eri is the daughter of the leader of a religious cult who are tapped into beings called "little people." Accordingly, the whole book is traced with a kind of pixie dust, full of coincidences and fantasy.

Aomame and Tengo met briefly, as ten year olds. He was kind to her, and they have never forgotten each other, so the book is pointed toward their reunion. But in the meantime, Aomame is more than a fitness instructor--she's also an assassin, dispatching men who are abusive to women. When she is assigned to kill the leader of the cult, she runs afoul of an odd and ugly little man, Uskikawa, who tries to track her down.

Murakami also write A Wild Sheep Case, and in that review I wrote that he reminded me of Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, and Raymond Chandler. That goes for 1Q84 as well. There's a nod to Chandler in metaphors like, "he was inconspicuous as a centipede in a cup of yogurt." But there's also the dry kind of wit found in Robbins and Vonnegut: "Smart presidents usually become the target of assassins, so people with higher-than-average intelligence probably did their best to avoid being elected." Or, "In kicking the balls, the most important thing was never to hesitate. One had to deliver a lightning attack to the adversary's weakest point and do so mercilessly and with the utmost ferocity--just as when Hitler easily brought down the France by striking at the weak point of the Maginot Line."

The book is also extremely sexual. Aomame has regular encounters with strange men--she prefers older, balding men with perfectly shaped heads--and Tengo has weekly assignations with an older, married girlfriend. Murakami occasionally wanders into Penthouse Forum territory, such as constantly describing Fuka-Eri in dirty old man language--she's beautiful, with large breasts. A key plot point has her sleeping with Tengo, and he comes inside her. "Tipping back his glass of white wine, Tengo recalled that he had ejaculated into the body of the beautiful seventeen-year-old girl now sitting across the table from him."

Of course, the book is also geared toward the literary among us. The title will bring up associations with George Orwell's book, and there are quotations from Chekhov: "There were too many questions. It was probably Chekhov who said that the novelist is not someone who answers questions but someone who asks them." A portion of Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa is quoted, and there is much talk about the indigenous people of Sakhalin. A story-within-the-story, about a town populated by cats, is also prominent, representing a place where a person can get permanently trapped.

There is much more to the book that I can't get to here. Suffice it to say that it's an absorbing read, and also lusciously romantic. I found myself looking up at the moon the other night to make sure there wasn't another one. As Murakami writes: "The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring--and all of the acts carried out--on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with cool, measured detachment. One the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon."