lunazura's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
nidula's review against another edition
4.0
pretty good but you have to be patient and prepared to be murakami'd hard
clarissanotdalloway's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
tiffyofthemonts's review against another edition
4.0
Such a strange book. I imagine this is the stuff English professors' dreams are made of.
koto_nete's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
wanderaven's review against another edition
4.0
REALLY torn between 3 or 4 on this one. A lot of boring sitting around, talking about Little People that never made any logical or plot-sense interspersed with Murakami's great ability to relate the human condition, including what it's like to be lonely and to yearn for another person.
Makes me want to finally read Kafka on the Shore and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle... but not for a while.
Makes me want to finally read Kafka on the Shore and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle... but not for a while.
cdeane61's review against another edition
4.0
OK, it took me a while to get it done, and i feel like a lot of it went over my head, but never once was I bored with this monster of a novel.
The boo touches on a great many points - relationships, love and loss, disconnectedness - im sure i could go on, and will probably find myself thinking about it for some time.
A good reading experience, and makes me want to pick up others by Murakami.
The boo touches on a great many points - relationships, love and loss, disconnectedness - im sure i could go on, and will probably find myself thinking about it for some time.
A good reading experience, and makes me want to pick up others by Murakami.
alysschapman's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
enbyglitch's review against another edition
4.0
Wow wow wow, wow. Where to begin ?
Format:
This 1157 page tome is technically split into three books, and while normally I would review each individually, the breaks seemed arbitrary enough that I decided to just take this as one book. That being said, I enjoyed books/parts 1&2 a fair bit more than 3 - as I'll discuss.
Magical Realism:
From the first page I loved the ever-so-faint suggestion that something was "off", more so in Aomame's story but also in Tengo's. This surreal feeling was great until near the end of part 2, where the book starts to explain things.
Aaand its just bland once its on the table. I would have much preferred to not hear anything about perceivers/receivers, and half as much about mazas and dohtas, but maybe that's just me. Also, when the content of the story 'Air Chrysalis' is revealed... it's literally just her experiences in an awful cult?
I was similarly intrigued by the changing orientation/position of page numbers in the book, at first suspecting they represented shifts in reality (as apparently many readers did). That they ultimately are just decoration is fine, but disappointing when taken alongside the revelations about magic in the story.
Prose, Characters, Genre:
At least 70% of the time, this feels like a world one can sink into easily and comfortably. Great descriptions, easy transitions, and unique characters. But there are also sections where the dialogue feels utterly mechanical, where characters start spouting exposition like they're reading a wikipedia article, that never failed to remove me from the narrative flow.
Aomame and Tengo are both great in their own ways, and given how much of the book is dedicated to them going about their lives, I'm sure they had to be. Also loved Tamaru and Komatsu, and Fuka-Eri was excellent until she became a strange magical plot device. I really enjoyed the little ways in which A and T's chapters would mirror each other.
I like the idea of suddenly introducing a third perspective in part 3, but in practice Ushikawa's POV felt utterly useless. He gives the reader 3-4 snall new pieces of information while copy-and-pasting huge chunks from earlier in the story. One chapter - maybe an interlude - from him would have been more than enough.
The back of my copy of the book calls it a 'love story, mystery, fantasy, book of self-discovery, and a dystopia'. And while advertisers gotta advertise... did you read it?? For my part:
- The Love Story felt completely forced until the last chapter. Aomame randomly proclaiming at the start of Part 2 that she 'would die to glimpse Tengo again' after not mentioning him once... no. Similar for the magical pregnancy that took Aomame out of part 3... On the other hand, both characters' views of their casual adult sex lives felt super real.
- As I already said, the magical Fantasy/Mystery was bland at best and completely unexplained at worst. As for the mysteries of Sakigake, it felt similarly unsatisfying if not more so?
- Self-Discovery is the label that most makes sense. It's literally the reason their trip to 1Q84 happened, and its the reason they leave.
- Calling this book a Dystopia feels like a crime to me. The central 'dystopic' themes in the book are Domestic Violence and Cults, both of which are extremely problematic real-world issues that shouldn't be minimized this way. While the aspect of violence against women was certainly the larger focus, I did find it interesting to see the cult bear a few resemblances to Aum Shinrikyo from real Japanese history.
Other Highlights/Gripes:
As with Aomame spending part 3 on her pregnancy, Tengo spending time with his father was a strange direction. Definitely a part of the self-discovery both characters were going through, but really de-railed the momentum of the plot for me.
On the flip side, I enjoyed the weird apparitions of Tengo's parents. The nurse showing Tengo he's not alone, the NHK collector terrifying people he's close to - this has gotta be a perfect use of magical realism in storytelling.
Yay for Tamaru being 'openly' gay and Aomame having lesbian experiences.
Big boo for the unexplained and almost certainly unnecessary d** death at the end of part 1. Was that really just an attempt at a cliffhanger??
Conclusion:
I really like a lot of what this novel does with its characters, and the efficiency with which the tiniest dose of unreality can catch and hold a reader's attention. For me most of Part 3 felt like a strange sidetrack or even epilogue, and while I can see the use of most of it I wish it had been better connected with the rest of the book.
Having the hardest time deciding between 3 and 4 stars, probably a 3.5 in the end.
Format:
This 1157 page tome is technically split into three books, and while normally I would review each individually, the breaks seemed arbitrary enough that I decided to just take this as one book. That being said, I enjoyed books/parts 1&2 a fair bit more than 3 - as I'll discuss.
Magical Realism:
From the first page I loved the ever-so-faint suggestion that something was "off", more so in Aomame's story but also in Tengo's. This surreal feeling was great until near the end of part 2, where the book starts to explain things.
Aaand its just bland once its on the table. I would have much preferred to not hear anything about perceivers/receivers, and half as much about mazas and dohtas, but maybe that's just me. Also, when the content of the story 'Air Chrysalis' is revealed... it's literally just her experiences in an awful cult?
I was similarly intrigued by the changing orientation/position of page numbers in the book, at first suspecting they represented shifts in reality (as apparently many readers did). That they ultimately are just decoration is fine, but disappointing when taken alongside the revelations about magic in the story.
Prose, Characters, Genre:
At least 70% of the time, this feels like a world one can sink into easily and comfortably. Great descriptions, easy transitions, and unique characters. But there are also sections where the dialogue feels utterly mechanical, where characters start spouting exposition like they're reading a wikipedia article, that never failed to remove me from the narrative flow.
Aomame and Tengo are both great in their own ways, and given how much of the book is dedicated to them going about their lives, I'm sure they had to be. Also loved Tamaru and Komatsu, and Fuka-Eri was excellent until she became a strange magical plot device. I really enjoyed the little ways in which A and T's chapters would mirror each other.
I like the idea of suddenly introducing a third perspective in part 3, but in practice Ushikawa's POV felt utterly useless. He gives the reader 3-4 snall new pieces of information while copy-and-pasting huge chunks from earlier in the story. One chapter - maybe an interlude - from him would have been more than enough.
The back of my copy of the book calls it a 'love story, mystery, fantasy, book of self-discovery, and a dystopia'. And while advertisers gotta advertise... did you read it?? For my part:
- The Love Story felt completely forced until the last chapter. Aomame randomly proclaiming at the start of Part 2 that she 'would die to glimpse Tengo again' after not mentioning him once... no. Similar for the magical pregnancy that took Aomame out of part 3... On the other hand, both characters' views of their casual adult sex lives felt super real.
- As I already said, the magical Fantasy/Mystery was bland at best and completely unexplained at worst. As for the mysteries of Sakigake, it felt similarly unsatisfying if not more so?
- Self-Discovery is the label that most makes sense. It's literally the reason their trip to 1Q84 happened, and its the reason they leave.
- Calling this book a Dystopia feels like a crime to me. The central 'dystopic' themes in the book are Domestic Violence and Cults, both of which are extremely problematic real-world issues that shouldn't be minimized this way. While the aspect of violence against women was certainly the larger focus, I did find it interesting to see the cult bear a few resemblances to Aum Shinrikyo from real Japanese history.
Other Highlights/Gripes:
As with Aomame spending part 3 on her pregnancy, Tengo spending time with his father was a strange direction. Definitely a part of the self-discovery both characters were going through, but really de-railed the momentum of the plot for me.
On the flip side, I enjoyed the weird apparitions of Tengo's parents. The nurse showing Tengo he's not alone, the NHK collector terrifying people he's close to - this has gotta be a perfect use of magical realism in storytelling.
Yay for Tamaru being 'openly' gay and Aomame having lesbian experiences.
Big boo for the unexplained and almost certainly unnecessary d** death at the end of part 1. Was that really just an attempt at a cliffhanger??
Conclusion:
I really like a lot of what this novel does with its characters, and the efficiency with which the tiniest dose of unreality can catch and hold a reader's attention. For me most of Part 3 felt like a strange sidetrack or even epilogue, and while I can see the use of most of it I wish it had been better connected with the rest of the book.
Having the hardest time deciding between 3 and 4 stars, probably a 3.5 in the end.