1Q84 Haruki Murakami (2010)
“Everybody feels safe belonging not to the excluded minority but to the excluding majority. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things. And those troubling things are all you can think about when you’re one of the few.”
“What Takashima is doing, if you ask me, is making mindless robots. They take the circuits out of people’s brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. That world is more like the one the George Orwell depicted in his novel. I’m sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that like of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don’t have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do.”
“He no longer believed with his whole heart in the possibility or the romance of the revolution. Neither could he completely disavow it. To do so would mean disavowing his life and confessing his mistakes for all to see.”
These are some of the quotes I found interesting in the book, but they don’t really capture the essence of the book itself. 1Q84 is set in Tokyo, 1984. The English pronunciation of the letter Q is apparently the same as the Japanese word for 9, so 1984 and 1Q84 sound the same in Japanese.
The lead characters are a 30 year-old woman, Aomame, a physical trainer at a sports club, who moonlights as a highly effective assassin; and Tengo Kawana, a 30 year-old man who teaches math at a cram school and writes on the side.
Tengo’s publisher runs across a brilliant, but unpolished, manuscript and asks Tengo to rewrite it so that it will be presentable to the public. The publisher believes the work has the potential to be a game-changing piece of literature. It was originally written by a 17 year-old girl, Eriko Fukada, so they need to get her permission to rewrite the work.
Eriko is the daughter of the leader of a growing, secretive, influential religious cult. Tengo has no idea that the things she describes in the book are things she believes are real: little people, air chrysalises, a second moon. But as he spends time with Eriko, her enigmatic personality opens up an alternate reality with him.
Aomame is, at the same time, charged with assassinating the leader of the religious cult, who has apparently had relations with several underaged girls. She too enters the alternate reality, which she calls 1Q84. Once she assassinates the leader, the connections between Aomame ,Tengo, Eriko, and the other characters grows. The story is woven in alternating chapters about Aomame and Tengo, and eventually include another character, Ushikawa, who is investigating their connection for the religious group in order to find Aomame and give her whereabouts to the leaders of the religious group.
The story was riveting from the beginning. There are times when it takes a bit before I really get engaged with a story, especially when it’s this long- 1150 pages. But from the beginning, I was wanting to read more. It starts off as a kind of thriller, but then moves into a bit of fantasy as well. Then it is somewhat of a love story too. It was one of those novels that I would look for free time so I could read. It took me 6 days to finish.
Given how much I liked this story, I may check out some more of Murakami’s works.
Le città invisibili- Italo Calvino (1972)
The title is ‘Invisible Cities’ in English. This one has been a tough read in Italian. The book is a series of descriptions of cities, which the explorer Marco Polo is supposedly giving to the ruler Kubla Khan. But they are descriptions of mental states that we find ourselves in. So while I’m reading the Italian, I had to admit the whole point of the work was not sinking in. So I opened up a copy of the English text and am reading it in parallel with the Italian.
One example is his recounting of the city of Zemrude. The mood of the beholder gives the city its form. If you go by whistling, nose up, you’ll see window sills, curtains, fountains, but if you hang your head, you’ll see gutters, manhole covers, wastepaper. Both are true. But everyone eventually begins to gaze down and that’s where the gaze remains. The reverse isn’t possible.
It’s not hard to see this is a metaphor of how we approach life, with either a positive or negative attitude. You can look around and find things that confirm your view. Generally, we tend towards the negative as we move through life, but we don’t get more positive.
«La forma delle cose si distingue meglio in lontananza»
The form of things is better discerned at a distance.
The Road to Serfdom- Friedrich Hayak (1944)
This is a classic book on capitalism and the free market, which gives defenses for the liberal system and free competition, and explains in detail why socialism, whenever it veers into attempts to direct the economy, always goes off the rails. I have posted a much longer breakdown of the points in the book elsewhere.
The Thirty-Nine Steps- John Buchan (1915)
A fun adventure/thriller story, written as a kind of dime-store novel. Short and easy to read, there were apparently a bunch of these series of these featuring the protagonist Richard Hannay.
The Master and Margarita- Mikhail Bulgakov (1928-40 written; 1967 published)
Ok, this one was interesting. It was compelling reading, but I have very little idea what it was about.
And on top of that, from page 319 to 350, the printer made a mistake and included pages 345-376 of another book: Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.
But I’m reading along and poof, the story just changes. Different characters, etc… no idea what is happening, then when I look it up, I realize it’s an actual screw up with the book printing.