1Q84

Well, that felt like running a brain marathon.

I've been reading this book pretty much the entire month of January, which isn't to say it's slow. I was reading until way too late at night trying to figure out what was going on, but there was still a lot more going on. As I often feel about Murakami's works, I was confused when I started and confused about totally different things when I finished. However, I ended up enjoying it anyway.

There's a couple of themes that stick out from this book. First off, the dangers of seclusion. Pretty much all of the characters in this story are secluded for one reason or another, by or against their own will in multiple ways. That seclusion does things to their psychology, forcing them to really explore themselves in ways a busy, interconnected lifestyle prevents. Fuka-Eri's initial encounter with the Little People involves being in solitary confinement, the place where she first learns to make air chrysalises. Fantastic elements like these are generally used as accents to the larger themes, but I think they serve their purpose well. I still don't know what that last scene with them meant at all though...

Tengo and Aomame's plot line involves the trials in ending that isolation. Neither of them has a strong grasp of self, and that's kept them apart for twenty years. It's scary to break out of your own confinement when you've been alone that long, and while the reader might not have actually cultists chasing them down if they step out of hiding, that fear is still something to which the reader, or at least this reader, can relate.

The other theme seems to be about domestic violence. A lot of horrible things happen to women in this story, and Murakami seems to be pointing out a real problem in Japan that doesn't get talked about. Women are definitely still second class citizens there, and I appreciate him bringing up how the isolation of women can actually be dangerous. That said, Murakami really likes to write weird lesbian subplots with straight women that make no sense. It's weird, and it will always be weird to me.

The book was not easy to read, and I'm really glad I have the Japanese background to retranslate some of the sentences. The translator did a great job, but some phrases just don't make sense in English and some cultural notes (Like overexhuberant NHK collectors) would have really puzzled me five years ago. I'd recommend reading this book with a wiki close by if you don't have much experience with Japanese culture.

It's a book I'll probably keep thinking about, and that makes it good, even if the ending left me more confused than the beginning. That's just what I expect from Murakami novels.