1Q84 - A review on Haruki Murakami.

 

In 1Q84, Professor Ebisuno uses the whirlpool in a river as a metaphor to explain the situation he and Tengo (protagonist) found themselves in. Professor Ebisuno is the guardian of a teenage girl who envisioned a story that captivated him. But that story lacked a professional touch for it to get published. So the protagonist Tengo works as a ghostwriter to finish that book, which eventually gets published and critically acclaimed. That book becomes the center of the whirlpool, which uncovers the dark past involving that soft-spoken teenage girl. The whirlpool which started as a mere disturbance in the current, eventually starts to pull everyone that was involved in its creation. There is nothing much left for the characters to do except face the dire consequences. This whirlpool will slowly reveal the ugly truth that was hidden beneath the river, these truths can only harm all those who become aware of it. This is just a part of the story among all the other crazy stuffs that is going on in 1Q84. But when I was reading about this metaphor of a whirlpool, I couldn’t help but realize reading Murakami’s books is like getting stuck in a whirlpool. He has this quality as a writer where he could easily hold onto you the minute you enter his world. He is like a magician who shows all his tricks as he performs the act, but still manages us to amuse us. 

You don’t necessarily have to love his story-telling, the themes he uses or even the narrative language he uses, still the moment you pick up Murakami’s book and start reading you will eventually get pulled by its force, then there is nothing much left for us to do but to listen keenly what he is saying. That could be anything, though you won’t get a chance to ask whether it is morally right or wrong. 

For someone who is reading 1Q84 as the first book of Murakami, then this book offers nothing but a mesmerizing world with several subplots, that intertwine effortlessly, which is more than enough to hook you until the final pages. If you are a regular visitor to his world then this book is a mixture of all the regular old shenanigans. Parallel worlds, alternative chapters with two protagonists, paedophilic, overtly sexualized women characters, incest, extramarital affairs, chronic depression, and mind-blowing surrealism. Several of these themes will seem morally wrong in a single glance, but that is the case with Murakami, you don’t have a say in it. All these themes merge into Murakami’s novel in a way that the whirlpool pulls broken branches of a tree floating in the river. You can't say that the branch is not supposed to be there, since you are also partly in that whirlpool. You are as helpless as that branch; you have been bamboozled by the magician. 

Murakami has been one of my favorite authors for a long time. After reading 1Q84 my interest in him has reached a saturated level. The recurring themes in all his works and the gloomy main characters were the reasons for that. My love for him peaked when I read Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood, but 1Q84 was too much for me to handle. This does not deny the absolute fact that this book is fabulous in storytelling and how it gripped me till the end. Murakami is well deserving of all the praise he gets for his works, which is mainly for his ability to grab the readers' attention most profoundly. What better quality is needed for an Author than that?. However, is that quality enough for him to be considered as one of the modern classists? No, but he is someone who has mastered the trick to hypnotize his readers.