'1Q84', Haruki Murakami

Rating: 7.5/10  

Overall Thoughts

This is my first Murakami novel, and as a whole, I was deeply intrigued by his storytelling skills which kept me at the edge of my seat most of the time.  The story surrounds two main characters, Tengo, who is a math teacher at a cram school who aspires to be a great novelist, and Aomame, a sports club instructor who commits carefully planned murders against high-profiled men who have physically abused women.  

I definitely had mixed feelings about this novel in the beginning, particularly when it wasn't clear how Tengo and Aomame were linked to each other.  Nevertheless, as the story gradually progresses, I was drawn in by the magnetic events which surround the characters, particularly the somewhat dangerous circumstances they both unknowingly gotten themselves into.  In a world that Aomame calls '1Q84' and Tengo refers to as 'cat town', they both found themselves strangely connected to one another, even though they have not spoken to one another for twenty years.

Murakami definitely has a way with words, and this is evident in 1Q84.  Mind-blowing reading experience.  

Favourite Quotes from '1Q84'

"Don't let appearances fool you.  There's always only one reality."

"I've got nothing left.  Anything of value I ever possessed has disappeared, one thing after another.  Everything is gone ..."

"If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation."

"As long as I'm alive, I can think what I want, when I want, any way I want, as much as I want, and nobody can tell me any different."

"We were not able to speak to or touch each other.  But in that short interval, he transformed many things inside me.  He literally stirred my mind and body the way a spoon stirs a cup of cocoa, down to the depths of my internal organs and my womb."

"A realization struck her.  This is what it means to live on."

"Even if I left this world, I doubt anyone would notice.  I would shout out from the dark, but no one would hear me. "

"Once you get your hopes up, your mind starts acting on its own.  And when your hopes are dashed you get disappointed, and  disappointment leads to a feeling of helplessness.  You get careless and let your guard down."  

"If you look at it the other way around, that's the only reason why this world is inside of me.  Maybe it's a paradox, like an image reflected to infinity in a pair of facing mirrors.  I am part of this world, and this world is a part of me."  

"From now on, things will be different.  Nobody else's will is going to control me anymore.  From now on, I'm going to do things based on one principle alone: my own will."