Book Review: IQ84 by Haruki Murakami

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami is an asymmetrical, deeply intriguing fairytale. Told from radically different perspectives, Murakami weaves together a picture of the past, present, and possible futures. He places the story in the past (1984) while simultaneously creating futuristic events and an alternate timeline, namely the world of 1Q84. This juxtaposition of a pre-mobile phone world and post-modern philosophy creates a captivating and poetic style.

While at points the plot can drag – and I’m still not certain why American publishers decided to print three books as one gigantic volume – the premise proved interesting enough to keep me going.

The main characters, like the world itself, can at times be both relatable and frustrating. Tengo, an oblivious aspiring-author, seems to wander through his world unable to grasp the indefinable strangeness around him until he meets Fuka-eri. A high-schooler with an improbably good story to tell, the eccentric Fuka-eri breaks into Tengo’s dull life like a wave crashing into a sandcastle. He is transfixed by this unusual girl and falls in love with her story more than with her. He becomes her ghost-writer, an act which wrenches him out of his casual, uninteresting life and lands him squarely in a world that is quite literally stranger than fiction.

Meanwhile, Aomame, a fierce yet flawed character who at first appears utterly detached from the main story descends into the world 1Q84 in an abrupt and observable fashion. Reflecting the two worlds she inhabits, she leads a dual life of energetic fitness trainer-cum-righteous assassin. Slowly, her own life becomes more and more entangled with the parallel stories of Tengo and Fuka-eri.

Aside from a single shared moment in their childhood, Tengo and Aomame have in common a deep and unsettling emptiness. Both have tried to fill it in their own ways, Tengo with words and Aomame with deeds, but both remain unsatisfied. As they attempt to navigate the world of 1Q84, they come closer and closer to each other and fulfillment.

Fuka-eri herself is actually not so much a character as a convenient plot-device. Her behavior is strange and her responses unpredictable and emotionless. Rather than being portrayed as the abused child that she is, she’s set up as some sort of spiritual receptacle. Here Murakami dives into a deeply disturbing plot twist that forces the reader to reconsider their basic moral ideas.

As a reader, I was both profoundly revolted and unrelentingly curious. Did I actually fully grasp the concepts presented to me? Was I capable of forming moral judgments on something so entirely foreign? I’m still not comfortable with the aspects of sexual exploitation and abuse that are addressed by this book, but perhaps that was the writer’s goal. Murakami’s magnum opus constantly circles in on itself taking the reader to deeper and deeper levels of plot and morality. The cyclical nature of change and duality, of both the world and the characters, is captured in a single well-illustrated metaphor: the double moon in the sky of 1Q84.

Although there are times when it feels as if the writer wanders through his world as unwittingly as his character Tengo and many instances where Murakami failed to “kill his darlings,” the prose is ultimately successful.  The writing, as strange as the story itself, is perhaps a result of translation from the original Japanese, but with his startling and unusual style of prose, Murakami surpasses any language barriers. The writing became itself a character in this intricately crafted story. Murakami’s world and lyrical use of language mesh inextricably.

For those of you willing to devote a significant amount of time and brainpower to this book, you will be rewarded with a world of unflinching strangeness and beauty that forces you to question your own concepts of religion, love, and even reality. What would happen if one day you descended into a world that, while similar to you own, was ever so slightly different? What would you do if you looked up to find two moons in your once familiar sky?

Nothing to Envy

As a writer of speculative fiction, I am a firm believer in reading non-fiction. How else can you create a believable world (sci fi, historical, or otherwise) without first reading about the world we live in? Our world and our history as a species is stuffed full of amazing stories and often unbelievable circumstances. Whether you draw inspiration from the current political climate, the oral traditions of native cultures, or the story of a prison colony formed 200 years ago, absorbing all you can about human societies and our history will enrich your writing to a degree that reading only fiction can't.

One of my favorite topics is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Korea. As a lover of all things dystopic, how can I resist the only true example of a dystopia in the modern world? For those of you who may be less familiar with the concept of a dystopia, think of it as a utopia gone wrong. It may look perfect on the surface (and often whatever force is in control tries to convince everyone that it is), but in reality it is deeply corrupted. The corruption often comes in the guise of totalitarian control (George Orwell's 1984), dehumanization (Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale), or environmental disaster (The Maze Runner by James Dashner). And with the rise of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, dystopic fiction has taken on a new popularity with the general public. 

But in the real world, there's only one example. North Korea. It can be hard to get information on this small, isolated country. The iconic image of a completely dark North Korea above the vibrant, capitalist South Korea, shows the extreme poverty of a nation where the citizens are told that they have "nothing to envy." Even though the government, now headed by the notoriously private Kim Jong Un, keeps a suffocating hold on all information going in or out of the country, there are some who manage to defect. It is through the eyes of these refugees that we can catch a glimpse of their struggle to survive and the difficulty of fitting into the world they escaped to. Studying the country and the people who live there has given me more insight into how to control people and the emotional response of those people than all of the dystopic fiction I've read combined.

One book in particular, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick, is especially good at putting a human face on an inhuman society. She chronicles the stories, dangers, and emotional journeys of six North Korean defectors. What makes this book so compelling is the author's ability to weave objective fact with the subjective narration of the individuals involved. It reads like a novel. A novel more terrifying in its truth than any work of fiction. 

But my main point is to read. Read everything you can get your hands on, fiction and non-fiction alike. My bookshelf holds topics as diverse as Victorian London, a memoir of a slave girl, a biography of J. Edgar Hoover, examinations of why some societies conquered others, and many, many more. Everything will make your writing richer, but if you're unsure where to start, just pick a topic that interests you. History and anthropology are two of my favorites. Then READ!

What was the last nonfiction book that inspired you?