I was greatly anticipating Murakami's 1Q84. I received the first copy via Amazon damaged, so it stalled my reading. When the replacement copy arrived, I let it sit on the shelf. I read reviews, that was my mistake. I normally don't read reviews until after I read a book, especially one as long 1Q84.
Every other language edition of 1Q84 (an homage to Orwell supposedly), got three volumes except the English translation which got one volume and two translators Philip Gabriel (who translated Norweigan Wood, Kafka on the Shore) and Jay Rubin. There was money to be made. The publisher, Alfred K. Knopf, wasn't going to take any chances.
Murakami dislikes talking through a translator, but obviously he needs to depend on translators for his work. Murakami was surprised when Sam Anderson, from the New York Times set the massive tome before him. He called it a "telephone book". He might not have even written it if he knew what it would become. You can read more of Anderson's article, "The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami" here.
Now I'm not finished and I probably would have thrown it aside by now, but when people talk about Murakami's "cult following" I have to admit I've sampled the Kool-Aid. I've been a long time fan of Japanese literature and count Yukio Mishima (Spring Snow especially), Soseki, and Kawabata amongst my short list of favourite authors of all time. Murakami's fascination with Kafka, Nabokov, and Vonnegut is one I share and can understand. What lover of the English language, who isn't a native speaker and wants to write a great book wouldn't appreciate Nabokov to the core? Nabokov mastered the English language and made it his bitch. As a non-native (albeit fairly fluent) English speaker he is an inspiration.
Aside from that, I wanted to read this book so badly that I actually ordered it. I have many thousands of books (in total I'm hovering at just about 19,000 at the moment, though I only have space for about 3,000 of them in my house with the rest sitting in storage) and am always adding to my library, but I rarely buy new books because I need to eat and pay bills too.
I was a bit overwhelmed with 1Q84's size. I've read William Gaddis' Recognitions, another massive tome (though of undeniable genius, let's be clear, it might be the best book I've ever read), and though it took me quite awhile because of how hectic my life was at the time, I barely noticed turning the pages and when I got to the end I wanted more.
1Q84 didn't grab me right from the beginning. Not like Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World did or The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. Nor was I as unhappy with the first 60 or so pages as I was with Kafka on the Shore, my least favourite of Murakami's works.
I turned to Monsieur Redacteur over the following lines of 1Q84:
Aomame turned her back on her silent audience and, with careful steps, began to descend the emergency stairway, feeling the chill of the crude metal rungs against the soles of her feet. Also chilling was the early April breeze, which swept her hair back now and then, revealing her misshapen ear.
(Chapter 1, page 12)
All those commas. "Silent audience". Just before Aomame is talking to her "audience", but we know she's all alone. There is no audience silent or non-silent. Except us, the readers. She "descends" down the emergency stairwell barefooted, talks about buying some new stockings. Bor-ing. As a woman I've had those sorts of practical conversations with myself a billion times. But it's the "Also chilling" sentence in that paragraph that bothers me most.
I asked Monsieur Redacteur wouldn't it be a better sentence if it read: "The chilling April breeze swept her hair back now and then revealing a misshapen ear".
His reply was, "maybe, but then you didn't write the book did you?"
Which brings me to Tengo's part of the story.
Tengo is rewriting someone else's book. He initially is resistant to do so. Then it overcomes him. He develops a hunger to rewrite Air Chrysalis. He begins after buying a word processor. A Fujitsu word processor, paper, and ribbons. It reminds the reader we're not reading a book set in the world of today. A computer is a new thing, that much is made obvious during Tengo and Komatsu's conversation about buying one. A chance for a tryst with his married girlfriend, ten years Tengo's senior, is lost due to her "woman problems", but not missed. Tengo wants to get started right away.
"but his feelings were already moving in the direction of rewriting Air Chrysalis. Ideas were welling up inside him like lifeforms stirring in a primordial sea. This way, I'm no different from Komatsu, he thought. Nothing has been formally settled, and already my feelings are headed in that direction on their own."
Chapter 6, pages 65 - 71 Tengo talks about the process of rewriting. About style, strengthening and fortifying passages. I do not see Tengo, not really. I see Murakami. I see him before his word processor. I see Murakami channeling a world that is not real, listening to the stories of that world and rewriting them. It's the closest I've ever felt to him. I take every line as a message. The sheer discipline that Tengo-Murakami shows inspires me.
These passages thankfully kept me reading. Yes there are parts where the text feels sloppy and yes I'm inclined to think it's because something was "lost in translation", but an earlier message in Chapter 1 in bolded text on page 12 now comes back to haunt me:
Don't let appearances fool you. There's always only one reality.
1Q84 is structurally an odd book. It's an expansion of one of Murakami's short stories, "On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning". I refuse to read it before finishing 1Q84, but you can read it here. 1Q84 has two faces, one of a girl on the front and one of a boy on the back. The first chapter started with Aomame and the second chapter with Tengo and it has so far remained this way. Each chapter a break from the characters in the chapter before with a subtle suggestion that eventually they will converge. There is only one moon.
Monsieur Redacteur being an astrophysicist I naturally ask, "is there any phenomenon where it could look like there are two moons in the sky?" "Maybe on a cloudy day when the moon is obscured, but normally no there's not", he answers.
I won't be able to stop reading now. Regardless of Murakami's flaws, whether those flaws are his or due to translation, I no longer care. If anything what this book has given back to me is something I thought I lost only recently. The ability to read not because I'm halfway through my life and all I see are the books I haven't read but should - but the hunger.
Every other language edition of 1Q84 (an homage to Orwell supposedly), got three volumes except the English translation which got one volume and two translators Philip Gabriel (who translated Norweigan Wood, Kafka on the Shore) and Jay Rubin. There was money to be made. The publisher, Alfred K. Knopf, wasn't going to take any chances.
Murakami dislikes talking through a translator, but obviously he needs to depend on translators for his work. Murakami was surprised when Sam Anderson, from the New York Times set the massive tome before him. He called it a "telephone book". He might not have even written it if he knew what it would become. You can read more of Anderson's article, "The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami" here.
Now I'm not finished and I probably would have thrown it aside by now, but when people talk about Murakami's "cult following" I have to admit I've sampled the Kool-Aid. I've been a long time fan of Japanese literature and count Yukio Mishima (Spring Snow especially), Soseki, and Kawabata amongst my short list of favourite authors of all time. Murakami's fascination with Kafka, Nabokov, and Vonnegut is one I share and can understand. What lover of the English language, who isn't a native speaker and wants to write a great book wouldn't appreciate Nabokov to the core? Nabokov mastered the English language and made it his bitch. As a non-native (albeit fairly fluent) English speaker he is an inspiration.
Aside from that, I wanted to read this book so badly that I actually ordered it. I have many thousands of books (in total I'm hovering at just about 19,000 at the moment, though I only have space for about 3,000 of them in my house with the rest sitting in storage) and am always adding to my library, but I rarely buy new books because I need to eat and pay bills too.
I was a bit overwhelmed with 1Q84's size. I've read William Gaddis' Recognitions, another massive tome (though of undeniable genius, let's be clear, it might be the best book I've ever read), and though it took me quite awhile because of how hectic my life was at the time, I barely noticed turning the pages and when I got to the end I wanted more.
1Q84 didn't grab me right from the beginning. Not like Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World did or The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. Nor was I as unhappy with the first 60 or so pages as I was with Kafka on the Shore, my least favourite of Murakami's works.
I turned to Monsieur Redacteur over the following lines of 1Q84:
Aomame turned her back on her silent audience and, with careful steps, began to descend the emergency stairway, feeling the chill of the crude metal rungs against the soles of her feet. Also chilling was the early April breeze, which swept her hair back now and then, revealing her misshapen ear.
(Chapter 1, page 12)
All those commas. "Silent audience". Just before Aomame is talking to her "audience", but we know she's all alone. There is no audience silent or non-silent. Except us, the readers. She "descends" down the emergency stairwell barefooted, talks about buying some new stockings. Bor-ing. As a woman I've had those sorts of practical conversations with myself a billion times. But it's the "Also chilling" sentence in that paragraph that bothers me most.
I asked Monsieur Redacteur wouldn't it be a better sentence if it read: "The chilling April breeze swept her hair back now and then revealing a misshapen ear".
His reply was, "maybe, but then you didn't write the book did you?"
Which brings me to Tengo's part of the story.
Tengo is rewriting someone else's book. He initially is resistant to do so. Then it overcomes him. He develops a hunger to rewrite Air Chrysalis. He begins after buying a word processor. A Fujitsu word processor, paper, and ribbons. It reminds the reader we're not reading a book set in the world of today. A computer is a new thing, that much is made obvious during Tengo and Komatsu's conversation about buying one. A chance for a tryst with his married girlfriend, ten years Tengo's senior, is lost due to her "woman problems", but not missed. Tengo wants to get started right away.
"but his feelings were already moving in the direction of rewriting Air Chrysalis. Ideas were welling up inside him like lifeforms stirring in a primordial sea. This way, I'm no different from Komatsu, he thought. Nothing has been formally settled, and already my feelings are headed in that direction on their own."
Chapter 6, pages 65 - 71 Tengo talks about the process of rewriting. About style, strengthening and fortifying passages. I do not see Tengo, not really. I see Murakami. I see him before his word processor. I see Murakami channeling a world that is not real, listening to the stories of that world and rewriting them. It's the closest I've ever felt to him. I take every line as a message. The sheer discipline that Tengo-Murakami shows inspires me.
These passages thankfully kept me reading. Yes there are parts where the text feels sloppy and yes I'm inclined to think it's because something was "lost in translation", but an earlier message in Chapter 1 in bolded text on page 12 now comes back to haunt me:
Don't let appearances fool you. There's always only one reality.
1Q84 is structurally an odd book. It's an expansion of one of Murakami's short stories, "On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning". I refuse to read it before finishing 1Q84, but you can read it here. 1Q84 has two faces, one of a girl on the front and one of a boy on the back. The first chapter started with Aomame and the second chapter with Tengo and it has so far remained this way. Each chapter a break from the characters in the chapter before with a subtle suggestion that eventually they will converge. There is only one moon.
Monsieur Redacteur being an astrophysicist I naturally ask, "is there any phenomenon where it could look like there are two moons in the sky?" "Maybe on a cloudy day when the moon is obscured, but normally no there's not", he answers.
I won't be able to stop reading now. Regardless of Murakami's flaws, whether those flaws are his or due to translation, I no longer care. If anything what this book has given back to me is something I thought I lost only recently. The ability to read not because I'm halfway through my life and all I see are the books I haven't read but should - but the hunger.
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| A page from the original manuscript with notes by Philip Gabriel. |
