Book Review: 1Q84: Book One

1Q84: Book One 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.

Quizzical 

Do you remember the last time you didn’t know that answer to a question? Did it bother you, your state of unknowing? I’m a big fan of knowing. I seek clarity; I need answers. As such, I’m thankful for my iPhone.

A question mark. It is the “Q” in Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and the underlying premise in the foundational narrative of Book One. 1Q84 highlights two protagonists connected in ways still uncertain.

Assassin Aomame 

Photo by Jesslee Cuizon

On one side, Aomame is a reserved young woman with dark secrets. She grew up in a cult and ran away from home at a young age. Her best friend committed suicide in the wake of domestic violence. Ever since the suicide, Aomame seeks vengeance. Collaborating with a wealthy benefactor possessing the same goals, Aomame removes aggressive and violent men from this earth.

“This was an easier death than you deserved, Aomame thought with a scowl. It was just too simple. I probably should have broken a few ribs for you with a five iron and given you plenty of pain before putting you out of your misery. That would have been the right kind of death for a rat like you. It’s what you did to your wife. Unfortunately, however, the choice was not mine. My mission was to send this man to the other world as swiftly and surely—and discreetly—as possible. Now, I have accomplished that mission. He was alive until a moment ago, and now he’s dead. He crossed the threshold separating life from death without being aware of it himself” (37).

Interestingly, this assassin hates men yet holds a strong affinity for one-night stands with middle-aged, receding-hairlined men.

Trickster Tengo 

On the other sides exists Tengo, a math instructor at a cram school and wannabe literary genius. Tengo desires recognition but his stories lack the panache necessary for a bestseller.

Luckily, Tengo uncovers a startling debut, Air Chrysalis, from a teenager in a new writer’s competition. Despite a stunning narrative, this young woman’s prose is poor. An editorial friend, Komatsu, devises a plan where Tengo re-writes Air Chrysalis, publishing under the teenager’s name, Fuka-Eri.

“Reasoning, common sense, instinct—they are all pleading with me to pull out of this as quickly as possible. I’m basically a cautious, commonsensical kind of person. I don’t like gambling or taking chances. If anything, I’m a kind of coward. I just can’t bring myself to say no to Komatsu’s plan, as risky as it is. And my only reason is that I’m so strongly drawn to Air Chrysalis. If it had been any other work, I would have refused out of hand” (118).

If everything goes well, Komatsu, Tengo, and Fuka-Eri stand to make copious amounts of money. If the plan fails, professional ruin lies ahead.

A Questionable World 

While Tengo places the finishing touches on the re-written Air Chrysalis, Aomame begins to perceive strange alterations to her environment. The police—her enemy given her line of work—have new uniforms and weapons out of the blue; the moon gains a companion in the sky, less shiny but strikingly moon-like. She labels this world “1Q84”.

“Like it or not, I’m here now, in the year 1Q84. The 1984 that I knew no longer exists. It’s 1Q84 now. The air has changed, the scene has changed. I have to adapt to this world-with-a-question mark as soon as I can. Like an animal released into a new forest. In order to protect myself and survive, I have to learn the rules of this place and adapt myself to them” (110).

An Orwelian Narrative? 

Photo by Trey Ratcliff

Clearly a reference to Orwell’s 1984, Murakami’s 1Q84, especially Book One, builds setting through a question mark. The reader doesn’t know what is real and what is fiction. Yet through dazzling prose and remarkable ideas, we are drawn into this question mark. In particular, Murakami introduces mysteries characters known as “the Little People.”

In Aomame’s timeframe, the Little People cryptically influence a 10-year old rape victim from a countryside cult. In Tengo’s narrative, the Little People play a crucial role in Air Chrysalis and Fuka-Eri claims they exist from her time in this same secretive cult. Murakami notes the connection to 1984:

“George Orwell introduced the dictator Big Brother in his novel 1984, as I’m sure you know. The book was an allegorical treatment of Stalinism, of course. And ever since then, the term ‘Big Brother’ has functioned as a social icon. That was Orwell’s great accomplishment. But now, in the real year 1984, Big Brother is all too famous, and all too obvious. If Big Brother were to appear before us now, we’d point to him and say, ‘Watch out! He’s Big Brother!’ There’s no longer any place for a Big Brother in this real world of ours. Instead, these so-called Little People have come on the scene. Interesting verbal contrast, don’t you think” (236)?

Book One introduces many questions. I eagerly look forward to answers in Book Two and Book Three. Murakami is a brilliant writer and I am enjoying my introduction to him in 1Q84. I enthusiastically urge you to give this book a read!

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Book Review: The Lifespan of a Fact

The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 128 pp

John D’Agata is the author of About a Mountain and Halls of Fame, and editor of The Next American Essay and The Lost Origins of the Essay. He teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he lives.

Jim Fingal worked for several years as a fact-checker at The Believer and McSweeney’s, where he worked on the titles What Is the What, Surviving Justice, Voices from the Storm, and others. He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he designs software.

Evaluating Truth

Recently, I engaged in an existential debate regarding the meaning of book evaluation. My considerations began in December as I compiled my year-end lists. Surprisingly, I found that I rate fiction higher than nonfiction. As I explored the reasons behind my presuppositions, I learned that the rating scale is calibrated differently per genre. On fiction’s side, I rated a book on entertainment value, quality of language, and character development. On nonfiction’s side, I based my rating on the truth value of the thesis. The more closely I found a nonfiction work aligned with my view of reality, the higher I rated the book.

This debate of art versus fact becomes realized in John D’Agata’s and Jim Fingal’s, The Lifespan of a Fact. The tome announces the dialogue around a rejected essay submission on a teenager who committed suicide in Las Vegas. In 2003, an essay by John D’Agata was rejected by the magazine that commissioned it due to factual inaccuracies. In The Lifespan of a Fact, that essay appears in full with the argument between D’Agata and fact-checker, Jim Fingal, dotting the margins.

Accuracy and the Meaning of Suicide 

The essay, in short, speaks of Levi Presley, a teenager who committed suicide in 2002 by jumping off the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. While detailing a true story, D’Agata’s essay flows impressionistically around the cultural climate of Las Vegas and the meaning of suicide.

The text of The Lifespan of a Fact

By privileging artistic expression, factual accuracy becomes a secondary concern. For example, Fingal and D’Agata argue about the number of seconds it took Levi to fall from the tower:

“’We therefore know that when Levi Presley jumped from the tower of the Stratosphere Hotel at 6:01:43 p.m.—eventually hitting the ground at 6:01:52…’ Factual Dispute: Although the incident did happen at ’18:01,’ according to the Coroner’s Report, Levi Presley’s fall supposedly only took eight seconds, not nine. So the actual time frame would be more like ‘6:01:43-6:01:51.’
John?
John: Yeah, I fudged that. It doesn’t seem like it should be that big a deal, though. It’s only a second. And I needed him to fall for nine seconds rather than eight in order to help make some of the later themes in the essay work.
Jim: John, changing details about stuff like Tobasco sauce bottles and thermometers is one thing, but it seems a tad unethical to fiddle with details that relate directly to this kid’s death. In my book, it just seems wrong, especially since the coroner clearly states that Presley’s fall only took eight seconds.
John: I don’t think it’s unethical, particularly because I wasn’t alone in assuming that his fall took nine seconds. For a while his parents also assumed that he had fallen for nine seconds. In fact, that’s where I initially got the number from. Do you think I’d just change this willy-nilly to suit some sort of literary trick I wanted to pull off? His parents and I had a fairly explicit conversation about these nine seconds with Levi’s old Tae Kwon Do coach. So with that little bit of information, I began thinking about some of the ways that the number nine could play a thematic role in the essay.
Jim: OK, I’ll grant you that at one point you didn’t know the correct number, but now you do know better, so shouldn’t it change?
John: ‘Nine’ is too integral a part of the essay at this point. And I admit that I’m wrong about ‘nine’ later on anyway. So the essay’s not changing. It would ruin the essay.
Jim: It would ‘ruin’ it to make it more accurate?
John: Yup” (19).

Must History Be Accurate? 

Photo by O Palsson

Strikingly, D’Agata finds the artistic representation of the number nine more important in the essay than the fact that the actual event occurred differently. Depending on your view of art and the purpose of truth in communication, your response to such an idea will differ. For some, the truth factor matters above all else because the event is real. Fingal, the fact checker, takes this stance:

“I don’t disagree that these facts are trifling, John, but don’t you think that the gravity of the situation demands an accuracy that you’re dismissing as incidental? This isn’t just about the name of one slot machine. I mean, even if there was no inherent meaning in these details, you’re giving them meaning by calling attention to them… You are writing what will probably become the de facto story of what happened to Levi, and so every detail you choose to [alter] will become significant, because your account will be the one account anyone is ever likely to read about him. And that’s why to me this is serious business, because the record you’re creating now, however minor, will be regarded as the authoritative one, if only because there is no competing narrative anyone else is likely to read or write about this kid” (107).

Artistic License Draws Upon Deeper Themes in Life?

Others more inclined to the thematic artfulness of creative writing will contend that the truthfulness of the event does not change. Whether Levi fell for eight seconds or nine seconds, he still committed suicide. D’Agata would argue that through an essay, a life can be memorialized whether or not it tells the story with accuracy to the second.

“An essay is not a vehicle for facts, in other words, nor for information, nor verifiable experience. An essay is an experience, and a very human one at that” (111).

Ultimately, I find it difficult to choose between the two sides. Accuracy matters. Nonfiction as a genre prospers on the foundation of truthfulness. To intentionally alter facts with artistic license is to insert falsity into a true story. Yet, the narrative function of a story requires emotion. When accuracy forces a story into clunky prose and too much detail to qualify a story’s progression, is not artfulness capable of maintaining the theme and keeping a story readable?

The Lifespan of a Fact: More Dadaist, Less Rembrandt 

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

For me, The Lifespan of a Fact feels like some of the early 20th century dadaist art. Much like Duchamp’s Fountain or In Advance of the Broken Arm, The Lifespan of a Fact elicits an intellectual response. In my mind, I laugh and say, “I get it.” But that response about covers the topic. The Lifespan of a Fact does not offer the depth of an intricate Rembrandt painting where each subsection of the piece carries interest to the smallest brushstroke.

My evaluation of literature remains schismatic. Fiction leans toward evaluative tactics that require consideration of writing technique and plot development. Nonfiction needs a level of truthfulness. But, The Lifespan of a Fact alters my perception in the principle of accuracy versus truthfulness. Levi Presely tragically chose to commit suicide in 2002. If D’Agata’s essay sheds light on his life in a respectable manner (of note, all profits from this book go to Levi’s family), I’m at peace with sacrificing accuracy.

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

Alternative Takes:
NPR
AV Club

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