Haruki Murakami’s epic novel 1Q84 was an instant success in Japan and soon its publishers were in a mad rush to get the work published for the english language market.

Oddly mirroring the plot line in the novel where one of main characters ghost rewrites a story, the publishers of 1Q84 were in such a hurry to get it to market that they enlisted the services of two different writers to translate the work; one for books I and II, and another for book III.

Set it Japan in 1984 the story revolves around two central characters:

Aomame (written with the same characters as the word for “green peas” and pronounced Ah-oh-mah-meh); a female fitness instructor and part-time assassin
and Tengo, an aspiring novelist and part time editor and maths lecturer

The point of view alternates each chapter with Aomame and Tengo and the reader slowly learns their connection. Murakami enjoys playing with the time period too and takes his time explaining iconic objects of the time.

1Q84 features an immaculate conception, telekinesis, transmigrating souls and a talking crow. But the more blatant oddness of Murakami’s plots tends to distract us from their roots in emotions that are just as unaccountable. A virtue of his writing is that, carried away, you rarely sense the strain. – Anthony Cummins The Telegraph UK

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The title 1Q84 has its roots in a few different places; it is set in 1984, there is of course George Orwell’s novel 1984, and in the story Aomame coins the term for the odd version of the world she finds herself in; it is 1984 but also no longer the same. The name of the letter Q is also the same sound in Japanese as the number nine “Kyu”. And the complexity of this too mirrors that of the storyline in many ways.

…Yes, this is a Haruki Murakami novel, where magical and dreamlike phenomena are deadpanned into existence with the same calm craft that his characters routinely employ in cooking themselves delicious-sounding Japanese meals. – Stephen Poole, The Guardian UK

Murakami has a knack for oddball twists (talking cats, raining fish) and in 1Q84 this continues with terrifying “little people” emerging from the mouths of goats and people and a moss coloured second moon hanging in the sky.

Having Tengo and his editor and co-conspirator discuss the writing and editing process delivers some classic writing advice:

“When you introduce things that readers have never seen before into a piece of fiction, you have to describe them with as much precision and in as much detail as possible. What you eliminate from fiction is the description of things that most readers have seen.”

and on story development:

“Once a gun appears in a story, it will be shot and someone will die”.

1Q84 is a masterpiece but I am left a little frustrated at having to read the translated story rather than Murakami’s original Japanese work.

Q is for 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

My faourite quote from the 15th Dalai Lama is:

People object when coerced down a particular path, even if they know it is for the better. It is primeval; they feel trapped and cannot get passed this feeling. You have to make them want to go; make the lead so soft they forget it is there.

PS. FICTION WARINING!!!

The current Dalai Lama (the 14th one) trancends the idea of a religeous leader and is almost an architype to himself. I’m no longer surprised when I come across him as a character in fiction. This by no means denigrates His Holiness, it is because he has touched so many of our lives. The drawers at my writing desk are filled with his quotes and advice on little peices of paper or desk calendar tear offs:

“Sometimes we feel that one individual’s action is very insignificant. Then we think, of course, that effects should come from channeling or from a unifying movement. But the movement of the society, community or group of people means joining individuals. Society means a collection of individuals, so that initiative must come from individuals. Unless each individual develops a sense of responsibility, the whole community cannot move. So therefore, it is essential that we should not feel that individual effort is meaningless- you should not feel that way. We should make an effort.”— His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from ‘The Dalai Lama’s Book of Love and Compassion’, available from Snow Lion Publications.

This quote empowers the individual and comes to my mind whenever I hear people lament their “one” vote or slip into apathy. I keep it close.

The quote at the start of this blog appeared in a short Sci-Fi story I wrote entitled “Panacea” set around the middle of the twentyfirst century. In the story I needed to insert a spiritual element in an attempt to “softly lead” the readers mind to a particular conclusion that I left unsaid at the end of the story.

This fictional Dalai Lama (I remind you of this again) I once desribed to a writer friend as the 14th Dalai Lama on crack. He was less predictable than the 14th Dalai Lama. I felt that if His Holiness had any failing it was that he was so archetypal, so good, and therefore predictable and open to manipulation by subversive groups.

My 15th Dalai Lama never held a gun but he was militant and as Murakami wrote in his book 1Q84: