Book Review: 1Q84: Book Two

1Q84: Book Two by Haruki Murakami (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 1184 pp)

Born in 1949 in Japan, Haruki Murakami studied drama at Waseda University. He began writing fiction at the age of 29, inspired to write a novel while watching a baseball game. Murakami earned literary fame with his best-selling novel, Norwegian Wood. In the wake of its success, he earned writing fellowships at Princeton University and Tufts University. Murakami has won the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize, the Yomiuri Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, and the International Catalunya Prize.

Check out my review of Book One.

Discerning Between Unenviable Options 

Often times, life does not provide a right answer. When pondering between two choices, both have pros and cons. If life was a series of obvious choices, we’d never question whether our lives are headed in the right direction. With Book Two of 1Q84, Haruki Murakami establishes one of life’s classic paradoxes where no obvious answer exists but a decision, nevertheless, must be made.

In Book Two, the reader finds the crux of the 1Q84 storyline. If you recall from my Book One review, main characters Aomame and Tengo have operated on parallel narratives seemingly intertwined in unknown ways.

A Dangerous Mission 

Photo by Marufish

Aomame, the vigilante assassin of violent men, accepts the most difficult assignment of her illegal career. Her organization learns of gross sexual misconduct from The Leader, a figurehead of a secretive, rural cult called Sakigake.

A dangerous mission, Aomame must prepare for failure. Suicide is an option.

“At least once a day she would stand in front of the bathroom mirror and put the muzzle of the loaded gun in her mouth. Feeling the hardness of the metal against the edges of her teeth, she imagined herself pulling the trigger. That was all it would take to end her life. In the next instant, she would have vanished from this world. To the self she saw standing in the mirror, she said, A few important points: not to let my hand shake; to brace for the recoil; not to be afraid; and, most important, not to hesitate” (354).

A closely guarded figurehead, the completion of this mission will result in flight for Aomame. Sakigake is an affluent organization that will stop at nothing to bring retribution for their leader’s death if the mission is successful.

In Between Fact and Fiction 

Meanwhile, Tengo receives further pressure in the wake of Air Chrysalis’ success. For starters, the author, Fuka-Eri, has run away. The longer she is missing, the more intense the scrutiny the publisher will receive and news of Tengo’s involvement as a ghost writer could ruin everything.

Even worse, the fantastical fictional narrative to which Tengo contributed is shifting into reality. He sees two moons in the sky.

“Could this mean, then—Tengo asked himself—that this is the world of the novel? Could I have somehow left the real world and entered the world of Air Chrysalis like Alice falling down the rabbit hole? Or could the real world have been made over so as to match exactly the story of Air Chrysalis? Does this mean that the world that used to be—the familiar world with only one moon—no longer exists anywhere? And could the power of the Little People have something to do with thins in one way or another” (548)?

The world of 1Q84 is becoming more influential.

A Choice 

In the process of completing her assassination attempt on The Leader, Aomame gains a fresh but unpleasant perspective.

Photo by Spreng Ben

For starters, The Leader wants to die. A window into the world for the Little People, The Leader cannot handle life anymore. As a conduit for these fantastical beings, The Leader no longer wants to carry this burden.

Even worse, the Little People are targeting Tengo for his involvement in Air Chrysalis, unknowingly cueing the public to the secretive workings of these mysterious beings.

Aomame faces an exceedingly difficult decision. Kill The Leader and ensure her inevitable death when Sakigake hunts her down and save Tengo, or release The Leader, save her life, and guarantee death for Tengo.

Having formed an irrational bond with Tengo in elementary school, her decision has no right answer.

Right, Wrong, Or Balance 

No matter Aomame’s choice, people will suffer. The ethic of good and evil carries no weight. In fact, The Leader argues,

“’In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil,’ the man said. ‘Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice versa. Such was the way of the world that Dostoevsky depicted in The Brothers Karamazov. The most important thing is to maintain balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals. Indeed, balance itself is the good. This is what I mean when I say that I must die in order to keep things in balance’” (447).

What would you do in Aomame’s shoes? Is self-preservation worth someone else’s life? Is balance a better question than right and wrong? We all face unending choices every day. While most of our decisions do not possess the same onus, choices are rarely clear.

Book Two progresses the 1Q84 narrative nicely and I eagerly look forward to Book Three.

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5.

---

Posted by: Donovan Richards

Affiliate Links:

Powell's Indie Bound Amazon

Book Review: Kraken

Kraken by China Miéville (New York: Del Rey, 2010. 509 pp)

China Miéville is the author of several notable novels, including King Rat, Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council, and Un Lun Dun. He describes his own work as “weird fiction.” He teaches creative writing at Warwick University, and is active in the Socialist Workers Party in his home country of England.

Lost in a Book 

Getting lost in a novel can be rare. I still remember as a child reading one of the first books I chose to read on my own, though I wish I remembered what book it was. The characters seemed to burst off the page, and I became an avid reader from that point on. In Kraken, China Miéville manages to make a story burst off the page in a strong story of urban magical realism. Though I got lost in his story, I also seemed to get literally lost in where the author was trying to go at times. In this story, a kraken (giant squid) is stolen, and an amazing Dan Brown-esque adventure ensues.

A Squid is Stolen 

Billy Harrow, our protagonist, is the curator of The Darwin Center, part of London’s Natural History museum. While on his normal tour schedule of the mollusk exhibit, he is disturbed to find that the prize of the exhibit, a preserved giant squid is stolen.

“The centre of the room was empty. All the jars looked over the scene of a crime. The nine-metre tank, the thousands of gallons of brine-Formalin, the dead giant squid itself were gone” (10).

A Cult Emerges 

Photo by Quest

An urban fantasy unveils as Kraken continues, where a magical underbelly emerges alongside modern technology. With the disappearance of this specimen, a mysterious group is strangely vexed that the giant squid is missing. This group worships the giant squid as god, and reveres Billy Harrow as its acolyte, as he’s tended to it for some years now.

“His squid had been a relic in a reliquary. ‘This is kraken year zero...this is Anno Teuthis. We’re in the end times. What d’you think’s been going on? You think it’s just bloody chance that when you bring god up and treat it as you do, the world suddenly starts ending? Why do you think we kept coming to see? Why do you think we had someone on the inside?...We had to know. We had to watch. We had to protect it too, find out what was going on. We knew something was going to happen. You realise the reason you had a kraken to work on is because in roaring it rose and on the surface died?’” (98).

Because Billy had touched the body of god in the mind of the mysterious group, kept it safe, and preserved it against time itself, he ushered in the Anno Teuthis, a phrase meaning “the end of the world.” Not only is there a religious cult that worships the giant squid, but Billy also encounters weird ghosts from the television series Star Trek, a Sect-Related Crime Unit from the Metropolitan Police, and other strange phenomena like Waiti, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a group of magicians.

A Magical Urban Fantasy 

All of these strange happenings in the plot make for a page-turning read. But, after a while, I felt a little lost. Page after page, a new fantastical incident occurs, and it’s easy to get lost. Billy floats around in a world that is completely strange, involved in some sort of Kantian, duty-bound magical system. But, Billy rolls with the punches as his investigation gets kraken (pun certainly intended). His unassuming nature keeps him incredibly endearing as he fights the crime lord Tattoo and his demonic undead henchmen, Gross and Stubby.

A Literary-Induced Dream

I was given this novel as a gift by my friend Eric, the same one who recommended I read The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. This novel wasn’t what I expected. At all. In short, Kraken could be defined as humorous madness, a literary-induced dream, and quite a different read for my normal fare. I think being completely lost in a new literary world is a rare occurrence, and I’m thankful that my friend recommended it to me.

All in all, this novel ends up like a magical fantasy a la The Da Vinci Code. Though the novel was complex and strange, I found myself entranced by this extremely different reading. My thoughts are if you liked the mystery and the clue-following found in The Da Vinci Code, and you can handle some weirdness, Kraken is most certainly for you.

Verdict: 3.5 out of 5
---
Posted by: Andrew Jacobson

Affiliate Links: