1q84

A central characteristic of Murakami's 1q84 lies in its place and time. The book begins with Aomame exiting 1984 Tokyo and entering 1q84 Tokyo, though she does not realize the transition immediately since the new universe is only infinitesimally different than the Japan of 1984. Aomame and Tengo alternately narrate each chapter and the connection between the two of them is gradually revealed.  Morality does not restrain Murakami characters. This is a mythic novel (as is Kafka on the Shore) in which nothing can be taken as first presented. Sex is not merely sex, but can serve other purposes, personally and in society. Family may or may not even be family.

Aomame does notice that police are wearing semi-automatic pistols instead of revolvers and thinks that she has simply missed the news. For the reader, this change signifies a more militaristic Japan than that in the world Aomame came from. Later, when Aomame acquires a gun, she is advised that "'According to Chekhov...once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired.'" Interestingly Murakami does not obey this precept, which he puts into a character's mouth. Neither Aomame's gun, nor the police guns are used, which demonstrates that Chekhov is incorrect. Perhaps Murakami just wanted to demonstrate that Chekhov could be wrong, or perhaps show that reality is more complicated than a Chekhov play. Chekhov is mentioned prior to this, when an excerpt about the Gilyaks from Sakhalin Island is read aloud. It is an ethnographic description of a way of life, and Gilyak interaction with Russian explorers/colonizers. 

One note about the English translation - the title is 1Q84. When it would look better as a lower case q - 1q84. That looks more like 1984, which would be more fitting.

"The Historian"

The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova is a suspenseful historical journey to find the burial site of Vlad Ţepeş, more commonly known as Dracula. The narrator, who remains nameless throughout the first half of the book is a 16 year old girl living in Amsterdam, with her diplomat father, Paul. The story unfolds in letters spanning from the 1930-1950's written by Paul, and his college advisor about their search to discover the truth about Dracula. Beginning with how Paul was drawn into the hunt not by inclination, but by the appearance of a blank book bearing the name Dracula, of unknown provenance, in the library one day; the letters document his subsequent research into the dark mystery. The search takes Paul from Oxford to Turkey, Belgrada, Budapest, and Sofia with a mysterious and beautiful Romanian anthropologist.

The suspense is maintained throughout the book by the interweaving of the letters documenting the past search for Dracula and the present day narrator's attempts to rescue her father from Dracula's minions. A brief excerpt will show how Kostova heightens the reader's anxiety: "The man behind the newspaper was so still that I began to tremble in spite of myself. After a while I realized what was frightening me. I had been awake for many long minutes by now, but during all the time I had been watching and listening, he had not turned a single page of his newspaper" (p. 228). At this point the story jumps back to Paul's letters and the reader must keep reading about the past in order to learn what will happen in the present.

I recommend this book for the engaging quality of the writing. The merging of the European and Turkish accounts of Dracula fact and legends in a quasi-academic way makes for entertaining reading. The journeys through Central-Eastern Europe illuminate the history if those states, but of course in a somewhat fantastical way.