Goodreads: A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s — 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers. (less)

Me: It was ok, if I'm being generous. I can always tell how much I like/dislike a book by I fast I finish it (with some allowances for book length). Really great books...I devour in days. I have finished some in a day (and yes, I've stayed up all night and been a zombie the next day. Once, I even called sick TO FINISH A BOOK. I obviously have a book problem).

The book is long and at times, slogging. It's physically long - over 900 pages and weighs almost 2 lbs (yeah, I went ebook version). It's also mind-numbing long in some parts.

Fans of Murakami, obviously.

People with a better understanding of the nuances of the Japanese culture than I do, because it is my understanding it changes the way you interact with the book. Fair enough, and I took that into account with my rating.

How freaking bored I was.

So much food preparation. Bizarre reactions to happenings. Guns are scary. Killing people with needles is not. Boobs. So much thinking about boobs.

The comparison to 1984 - I guess in an oddly vague sort of way that could be maybe possibly true.

It often reads like some kind of weird male 'fantasy' where women are really into receding hairlines and vivid sexual encounters - of which, hey, I'm down with that - but it doesn't do much to give the character...any further character. Veiled misogyny - which people are starting to think I'm some sort of feminist-rambo-bot. I'm not. Contextually, it often has it's place. Here, it was just sort of..."meh".

And finally...so many words. So much nothingness of a book. Don't misunderstand my point of view here. It's a cool concept, and there are a few great poetic moments, where I actually stopped to ponder the preceeding sentence(s) with great admiration. In short, I understood the book, and I enjoyed a few moments.

Finish it? I barely finished it. I wanted to walk away several time bc my time is too valuable for this.

I finished solely because it was based on a contest I had committed to and it was too late to switch.

I will forfeit next time this happens.

The book is like...it's like a painting in an art gallery where the canvas is a gradient of one colour. The artist explains its representative of the transient nature of existence, from birth to death. Critics go crazy for it, the public follows suit, and everyone goes a little nutty, somehow able to rationalize the fact that even though the concept behind it is kind of cool, the fact is, it's just really kind of boring after a while.

I went and looked up reviews for his other work, and it seems this is the one that it is least liked, so let's say it may not represent the full body of work.

Therefore: he does have some BEAUTIFUL writing, even in this book, but I'd recommend a reader start with something else.

2-stars for concept.
2-stars for execution.
+1 star because it is obvious he can spin a sentence that makes you stop and think, stop and relish in it's beauty, ...I wish I could write a damn sentence like that.

Too bad he buried them among a bunch of humdrum.

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Created Jan 21, 2018 at 11:01am • Submit your own review...