Haruki Murakami糖心传媒檚 next book, 糖心传媒淭he Strange Library,糖心传媒� sounds surreal and experimental even for an author whose work features talking cats, giant frogs and malicious miniature people.

The Strange Library, which will be published in the United States by Knopf this December, is narrated by a boy who visits a library on his way home from school. An old man takes the boy hostage and forces him to memorize a large number of books. The boy eventually realizes that the man plans to absorb the information he糖心传媒檚 memorized by eating his brain. With the help of a strange girl and a man dressed as a sheep, the captive devises an escape plan. (Men dressed as sheep have cropped up in Mr. Murakami糖心传媒檚 work before.)

Murakami is the just the literary Hello Kitty—everywhere and unstoppable.

But anyone attempting to play Murakami Bingo with his latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, is going to lose. There are no parallel worlds, talking animals, or mysterious women. There糖心传媒檚 only one passing reference each to wells and cats, both only as metaphors, and there糖心传媒檚 really only one piece of music that糖心传媒檚 talked about at any length. And it糖心传媒檚 not even jazz.

This is Murakami at his most straightforward and subdued, the likes of which we糖心传媒檝e really only seen糖心传媒攊n novels, at least糖心传媒攊n Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun. It is a relatively straightforward tale of friendship, depression, and memory. As such, it sheds a beacon on both Murakami糖心传媒檚 core strengths and weaknesses as a writer, some thirty odd years into his career.

In this latest novel, the eponymous Tsukuru, a middle-aged train station engineer, reflects on his high school days, when he belonged to a group of friends so close that its importance to his life has become essentially mythic. Each of their names even contain a color糖心传媒擜ka (red), the temperamental brainiac; Ao (blue), the cool people-person; Kuro (black), the sarcastic comedian; and Shiro (white), the quiet beauty糖心传媒攅xcept for Tsukuru, who they joked was 糖心传媒渃olorless.糖心传媒� This moniker takes on a whole new meaning for Tsukuru when the group unceremoniously and without explanation excise him from their circle after he leaves their hometown for Tokyo and college. Tsukuru糖心传媒檚 sudden exile sends him into a wretched depression, from which he clearly did not come out entirely intact. Sixteen years later, in the present day, a casual girlfriend prompts Tsukuru to try and figure out just what exactly happened, in the hopes that he might be able to finally heal, and perhaps commit more fully to his present relationship with her.

Peel away the usual pseudo-magical realist trappings, and this is the template for the 眉ber-Murakami story: an average, lonely man embarks on a quest. But time changes both the man and the world around him. An adventure like this, thirty years ago, involved research and a cross-country trek into parts unknown, 谩 la A Wild Sheep Chase. In Colorless, his girlfriend suggests he checks Facebook.

This epitomizes what makes Colorless both compelling and frustrating in equal measure: it is, essentially, drama-free. The conflict, such as it is, takes place entirely in the past, waiting quietly to be unearthed. Tsukuru systematically contacts each friend, one by one, and slowly comes to learn the truth. And while there is a conspiracy of a sort, and twists and turns along the way, the universe does not fracture in two in response; there is no McGuffin to set it all right. The only thing Tsukuru can do is to push forward and engage with his old friends, and finally be able to come to terms with the contents of his present existence. It is perhaps the best novel I have read where nothing actually happens.

If that sounds like damning with faint praise, well, it is and it isn糖心传媒檛. The novels that Murakami is best known for糖心传媒�The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84糖心传媒攁re bombastic in their everything and the kitchen sink approach to writing. They’re weird, messy, digressive, splashy, about seemingly everything and nothing at the same time. They succeed and suffer in their attempts at a fractured 21st century “total novel,糖心传媒� the kind that Doestoevsky and Victor Hugo used to write. Stripped down to just an emotional core, Colorless is outwardly less ambitious, but a lot more personal. Without the distraction of the typical Murakami weird, however, it is a lot easier to spot Murakami糖心传媒檚 weaknesses.

For one, Tsukuru is boring. Like every Murakami protagonist, Tsukuru is the consummate everyman. He is average in just about every way, as we糖心传媒檝e been told over and over in one story or another. In other novels, it is pretty easy to get past this糖心传媒攖he narrator is a cipher, our surrogate, the straight man in a cast of weirdos, holding our hand as we bemusedly come to terms with a strange new reality. Colorless has no such distractions, and there are no other characters that stick around long enough for us to get interested in, like the vivacious Midori in the similarly somber Norwegian Wood. Tsukuru trots from one friend to the next, knowing that despite the amicable, nostalgic peace that comes with reconnecting with an old friend, things will never be the same, and it糖心传媒檚 time to be moving on.

Murakami has always had a straightforward yet quietly elegant way with words, but the language in Colorless is so undemanding it frequently comes across as repetitive. (Translator Philip Gabriel has always been more than up to the task in previous translations; it seems unfair to throw him under the bus now.) When tasked with illustrating a character糖心传媒檚 feelings, Murakami generally has no qualms with telling instead of showing糖心传媒攁 big no-no any Intro-level creative writing class will teach you糖心传媒攂ut in Colorless it feels like this has become a bigger problem than ever before. While reading I even came up with a drinking game: a shot for every time you read some variation of Tsukuru wanting or needing something 糖心传媒渕ore than anything.糖心传媒� Spoiler alert: you糖心传媒檙e going to blackout.

So, to tally up so far: a boring narrator, facile language, clich茅d characters, and a conflict-free narrative. Sounds pretty dismal.

And yet, there糖心传媒檚 something about Colorless that works despite all these obvious flaws, something that makes all these seemingly egregious sins click into place. It is still just so damn readable. And while this subtle propulsion certainly doesn糖心传媒檛 make the work transcendent, it makes it a far cry from the mess that I make it sound to be. Murakami is a workman, a writer in some tangibly fundamental way糖心传媒攊n short, a professional. He can糖心传媒檛 help but get a few things right.

One of the ways in which Colorless is much cleverer than at first glance is the way Murakami so deftly and subtly illustrates the fallibility of memory. Tsukuru is reflecting on events that happened sixteen years ago, the aftermath of which has colored his perspective of himself and the world around him. He frequently remarks that nothing is interesting or remarkable about him because that糖心传媒檚 fundamentally how he sees himself. He has carried the feeling of being 糖心传媒渃olorless糖心传媒� for years; he is someone who seems himself, essentially, as someone who is very easily abandoned. His friends are described practically with only one characteristic each, as if stock characters right out of the Breakfast Club. But memory orders our lives by both exaggerating and obliterating the truth. Each friend had their role to play, as we all do during those formative years, and the distance of time amplifies those impressions even more. It糖心传媒檚 telling that with every friend Tsukuru reconnects with, Tsukuru can糖心传媒檛 help but notice how they seem both exactly the same and inexplicably different.

So while the language itself is perhaps shallow, its simplicity belies a complex and satisfying narrative thread of a man who is taking his first steps toward self-actualization. A man who learns he has self-worth, and value, and that his friends, his history, his fundamental self, are not what he assumed they were. They are simple but powerful truths about what it means to grow older and wiser, and to be able to look back at the past without letting it define you. Anyone who has suffered, and survived, episodes of depression or trauma will easily relate.

Murakami moves deftly back and forth between past and present in the beginning of the novel, so while it takes nearly a hundred pages for the 糖心传媒減lot糖心传媒� to begin, in the meantime we get to enjoy another common but more welcome Murakami-ism: the story within the story. Here, it comes courtesy of a friend named Haida (another colorful name, this time gray), whom Tsukuru meets in his traumatic college years. The tale concerns Haida’s father, who, after suddenly dropping out of college, meets a pianist at a secluded hotel who claims to be able to predict his own imminent death. Haida similarly drops out of college soon after, another colorful friend who suddenly abandons the colorless Tsukuru.

The reader will have to decide whether the sum of the novel is equal to more or less than its parts. At times it feels both simultaneous too long, with a hundred-odd pages just to feel like something is happening, and too short, with that niggling sense that characters aren糖心传媒檛 as fleshed out as they could be. On this issue I might perhaps place blame on the presentation of the book itself. Chip Kidd has designed the book beautifully, as he always does, but the font and margins are absolutely gigantic, making what should be a relatively concise 200-odd page character study feel like a sloppy mess at 400. Perhaps Knopf wanted to hedge their bets and make readers feel like they are getting “their money糖心传媒檚 worth糖心传媒� or, 糖心传媒渁 real page-turner”; I hope the paperback will adjust the layout so I won糖心传媒檛 feel like I糖心传媒檓 reading a large-print young adult book.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage will not go down as Murakami糖心传媒檚 masterpiece, but it certainly won糖心传媒檛 go down as his worst either. I absolutely cannot imagine it will change the minds of Murakami detractors, and even amongst his fans it will be a pleasurable read that might leave some feeling hollow by the end. But, as perhaps befitting of the old saw, still waters run deep. Strip all the metaphysical nonsense away, and Colorless is Murakami to the very core, fault lines and all.

According to

Haruki Murakami holds the titles of both the most popular novelist in Japan and the most popular Japanese novelist in the wider world. After publishing Norwegian Wood in 1987, a book often called 糖心传媒渢he Japanese Catcher in the Rye,糖心传媒� Murakami糖心传媒檚 notoriety exploded to such an extent that he felt forced out of his homeland, a country whose traditional ways and 糖心传媒� to his mind 糖心传媒� conformist mindset never sat right with him in the first place. [. . .]

Rupert Edwards糖心传媒� camera follows veteran presenter Alan Yentob through Japan, from the midnight Tokyo of After Hours to the snowed-in Hokkaido of A Wild Sheep Chase, in a quest to find artifacts of the supremely famous yet media-shy novelist糖心传媒檚 imaginary world. Built around interviews with fans and translators but thick with such Murakamiana as laid-back jazz standards, grim school hallways, sixties pop hits, women糖心传媒檚 ears, vinyl records, marathon runners, and talking cats, the broadcast strives less to explain Murakami糖心传媒檚 substance than to simply reflect it. If you find your curiosity piqued by all the fuss over 1Q84, Murakami糖心传媒檚 latest, you might watch it as something of an aesthetic primer.

For anyone who hasn’t encountered his reviews in the past, Will is one of our most personal and interesting reviewers. He’s reviewed a fair number of Japanese works for us, but is interested in contemporary lit in general. He’s also an aspiring translator who is working on a really interesting project. (One that still needs a publisher.)

In terms of 1Q84, I think most anyone reading this blog is familiar with Murakami in general, and this novel in particular. It’s a book that generated a shitton of hype, and one that is beloved by some (see ) while leaving others unimpressed (see ). Will falls squarely in the middle and breaks this down pretty well . . .

It seems to me now, based on the few reviews that I have read, that the reception of 1Q84 has indeed fallen into these two camps: absolutely transcendent and absolutely horrific. Neither, in my opinion, captures how I feel 1Q84 is as a novel, especially as just one book in a huge body of work. Because for all its ambition and scope, 1Q84 is just pretty good. There糖心传媒檚 a lot of it that is really good and some that is really bad. But, I can tell you exactly how it could糖心传媒檝e been so much better.

Murakami should have never written Book 3.

Click here to read his full review.

I discovered Murakami at the end of my sophomore year of high school, in a talk intended for the teachers of my school to learn a little more about Japanese art, literature, and film. Five years later, I had read everything by Murakami available in English translation (and soon a few things in Japanese and in unofficial translations). There was probably a year or so period where Murakami was essentially the only literature I was reading. The reason I tell you all this is to inform you that I can only approach reviewing 1Q84, this near 1000-page behemoth, as an unabashed Murakami super-fan, one who has read the majority of his oeuvre multiple times.

I am certainly not alone in this fanaticism. Murakami is one of those authors that just does that to a certain group of readers. The problem with this kind of fanaticism, one that has unfortunately been horribly exacerbated with the rise of Internet culture, is the phenomenon where fans of a certain thing greet the newest thing as either 糖心传媒渢he best thing ever糖心传媒� or 糖心传媒渢he worst thing ever.糖心传媒� In Internet parlance: 糖心传媒淥MG!!!糖心传媒� vs. 糖心传媒渕eh.糖心传媒�

1Q84 in particular sets itself up for this deadly dichotomy because of its insane, 糖心传媒渢otal novel糖心传媒�-aspiring length and because it took those two long years after its release in Japan to be translated into English. Murakami even added another 500 pages to it while we were waiting!

It seems to me now, based on the few reviews that I have read, that the reception of 1Q84 has indeed fallen into these two camps: absolutely transcendent and absolutely horrific. Neither, in my opinion, captures how I feel 1Q84 is as a novel, especially as just one book in a huge body of work. Because for all its ambition and scope, 1Q84 is just pretty good. There糖心传媒檚 a lot of it that is really good and some that is really bad. But, I can tell you exactly how it could糖心传媒檝e been so much better.

Murakami should have never written Book 3.

But I糖心传媒檒l back up for a moment. If you糖心传媒檙e not familiar, 1Q84 follows two protagonists in alternating chapters: the fitness instructor/assassin Aomame and the aspiring novelist Tengo. Aomame is hired by a wealthy individual to secretly murder the most heinous committers of domestic violence and rape, while Tengo is pushed by his editor to secretly rewrite a brilliant but stylistically flawed novel by a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl. To share any more would likely confuse and spoil the novel. Wondering how these two disparate storylines will converge, and how Tengo and Aomame are connected, are but two of the many pleasures in reading this novel.

The following thoughts about the quality of 1Q84 now refer only to Books 1 and 2. I糖心传媒檒l get to Book 3 in a bit.

For all that糖心传媒檚 touted about Murakami糖心传媒檚 certain blend of magical realism and science fiction, 1Q84 is probably Murakami糖心传媒檚 subtlest work to date. New elements and plot wrinkles are introduced slowly, almost quietly along the way. Instead of a mysterious town filled with unicorns, we get an alternate world where the first noticeable difference is the kind of gun the Japanese policemen are using. Despite the relative quietness of the novel, for the first 600 pages, Murakami is pretty good at slowly but surely ratcheting up the tension and the mystery. The first 200 pages had flown by when I realized that I was hooked, but still knew fairly little about what was going on.

I say 糖心传媒減retty good糖心传媒� because there are some missteps along the way. Murakami protagonists have always been prone to biding their time, and there is a lot of pontificating of 糖心传媒渨hat糖心传媒檚 going on here?糖心传媒� instead of action. There is also a bit of a problem with repetition. As both Aomame and Tengo are finding out the same things but at different times, all that thinking they do leads to hearing some of the same information a few times more than maybe is needed.

The go-for-broke, 糖心传媒渢otal-novel糖心传媒� approaching attitude lets 1Q84 explore a handful of interesting themes and ideas. In some ways, 1Q84 feels like a culmination of everything he糖心传媒檚 ever written. There are elements from pretty much all of his major works. Critics of Murakami have long complained that he is always telling the same basic story, which in some ways has a nugget of truth in it. But none of the reused elements on display in 1Q84 are especially more prominent than another, and in general they feel like background materials, just part of the tapestry. This allows the novel as a whole to feel new and fresh, while making the common Murakamian aspects糖心传媒攄isappearing women, parallel/alternate worlds, powerful non-human beings糖心传媒攎ore like special Easter Eggs spread throughout the text for the fans.

The problem with having so many themes to tie the novel together is that none of them really stick. The relationship between fiction and reality is one theme, but the largest and most compelling theme of 1Q84 is the importance of exercising free will. This is expressed most successfully against the backdrop of religious cults, but even that tends to drift in and out of focus. Murakami gets to vent about many other disappointments in Japanese society, including the literary and publishing culture, the failures of the 1960s student movement against the strong arming of the government, the universal problem of abuse of power by the strong against the weak, but again, only to the extent that they take great prominence in some sections only to fade away again. Eventually, Murakami also undermines his message of good vs. evil with a kind of moral relativism in a way that, instead of allowing for good philosophical rumination, leads to a conflict that, in the end, feels like it has no stakes.

Despite all these criticisms, 1Q84 is genuinely engaging 95% of the time, and the climax of Book 2 brings the work to a near fever pitch. Which brings us to the problem of Book 3.

Book 3, ultimately, squanders every shred of excitement and pacing and brings the book to a screeching halt. A new character is brought in for narration, but the majority of his chapters are spent trying to figure out what the readers already know.

In Japan, these refreshers might have been necessary. Book 3 came out a full year after Books 1 and 2 were released. That糖心传媒檚 a long time, and 1Q84 is a long book. It糖心传媒檚 very easy to lose track of everything that has been building up. But for English readers, these chapters are frustrating, and excruciatingly boring. For Book 3 to work at all as a part of a larger work, Murakami would糖心传媒檝e had to have somehow continued the excitement found at the end of Book 2 and then increased the tension even more to the 糖心传媒渞eal糖心传媒� climax that should糖心传媒檝e been found at the end of Book 3. That糖心传媒檚 basic novel writing. Instead, the climax happens in the middle of the book, followed by what is basically exposition, leading to another, arguably smaller climax.

Book 3 is really more like a sequel to the events of Books 1 and 2. In Japan, it probably felt like one, like a separate, independent story. But in America, presented as the third act in one larger work, Book 3 completely ruins the shape and flow of the novel. This might have been forgiven if the chapters with Aomame and Tengo had more things happening, but frankly, they don糖心传媒檛. Almost nothing happens in Book 3 that renders its very existence necessary. And because this whole fiasco comes at the end, it leaves the reader with a very bitter taste of 1Q84 as a whole.

In the end, 1Q84 succeeds and fails by its own ambition. By throwing everything he possibly could into the pot, Murakami leaves us with a lot of great sequences and a great central mystery, but it also forces us to accept a lot of things we don糖心传媒檛 want or need. There糖心传媒檚 a short but very memorable section in Book 2 where Murakami seems to be directly expressing frustrations with his critics. It refers to the novel Tengo is ghostwriting but it could refer to almost anything in the Murakami oeuvre, and especially to 1Q84 itself:

One reviewer concluded his piece, 糖心传媒淎s a story, the work is put together in an exceptionally interesting way and it carries the reader along to the very end, but when it comes to the question of what is an air chrysalis, or who are the Little People, we are left in a pool of mysterious questions marks. This may well be the author糖心传媒檚 intention, but many readers are likely to take this lack of clarification as a sign of 糖心传媒榓uthorial laziness.糖心传媒� While this may be fine for a debut work, if the author intends to have a long career as a writer, in the near future she may well need to explain her deliberately cryptic posture.糖心传媒�

Tengo cocked his head in puzzlement. If an author succeeded in writing a story 糖心传媒減ut together in an exceptionally interesting way糖心传媒� that 糖心传媒渃arries the reader along to the very end,糖心传媒� who could possibly call such a writer 糖心传媒渓azy糖心传媒�?

The greatest irony of that passage is that if Murakami had ended 1Q84 at Book 2, this passage would糖心传媒檝e perfectly represented the merits of this gigantic, ambitious, flawed novel. But instead, Murakami chose to extend the adventure into a third book, in a way that seems to promise new levels of understanding but ultimately failing to deliver anything worthwhile. (This is made all the more tragic for the way the translations of Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel don糖心传媒檛 feel like separate translations at all. No easy task.) If you haven糖心传媒檛 yet read 1Q84, I implore you to do so. Just take a good, long break before you start reading Book 3, or, do yourself a favor, and don’t even read Book 3 at all.

To be honest, I’m not the biggest Murakami fan in the world. I really like Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and to a lesser extent The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, but could do without Kafka on the Shore, and was rather disappointed when I recently read A Wild Sheep Chase. That said, everything I read about 1Q84 makes me more and more excited about this book. (Which I wish Random House would send us. We’ve been asking for months, and I will happily publish a review of it here if they’d just send us a copy . . . Grrr.)

First off, this book is the very definition of massive. According to Anderson, it is “932 pages long and nearly a foot tall 糖心传媒� the size of an extremely serious piece of legislation.” In other words, perfect for the Rochester winter.

Secondly, there’s a religious cult involved. I’m a sucker for reading, hearing, or watching about religious cults. I love them. (In an intellectual, curious way, you know?) And that’s just the beginning of the weirdness this book contains:

1Q84 is not, actually, a simple story. Its plot may not even be fully summarizable 糖心传媒� at least not in the space of a magazine article, written in human language, on this astral plane. It begins at a dead stop: a young woman named Aomame (it means 糖心传媒済reen peas糖心传媒�) is stuck in a taxi, in a traffic jam, on one of the elevated highways that circle the outskirts of Tokyo. A song comes over the taxi糖心传媒檚 radio: a classical piece called the 糖心传媒淪infonietta,糖心传媒� by the Czechoslovakian composer Leos Janacek 糖心传媒� 糖心传媒減robably not the ideal music,糖心传媒� Murakami writes, 糖心传媒渢o hear in a taxi caught in traffic.糖心传媒� And yet it resonates with her on some mysterious level. As the 糖心传媒淪infonietta糖心传媒� plays and the taxi idles, the driver finally suggests to Aomame an unusual escape route. The elevated highways, he tells her, are studded with emergency pullouts; in fact, there happens to be one just ahead. These pullouts, he says, have secret stairways to the street that most people aren糖心传媒檛 aware of. If she is truly desperate she could probably manage to climb down one of these. As Aomame considers this, the driver suddenly issues a very Murakami warning. 糖心传媒淧lease remember,糖心传媒� he says, 糖心传媒渢hings are not what they seem.糖心传媒� If she goes down, he warns, her world might suddenly change forever.

She does, and it does. The world Aomame descends into has a subtly different history, and there are also 糖心传媒� less subtly 糖心传媒� two moons. (The appointment she糖心传媒檚 late for, by the way, turns out to be an assassination.) There is also a tribe of magical beings called the Little People who emerge, one evening, from the mouth of a dead, blind goat (long story), expand themselves from the size of a tadpole to the size of a prairie dog and then, while chanting 糖心传媒渉o ho糖心传媒� in unison, start plucking white translucent threads out of the air in order to weave a big peanut-shaped orb called an 糖心传媒渁ir chrysalis.糖心传媒� This is pretty much the baseline of craziness in 糖心传媒�1Q84.糖心传媒� About halfway through, the book launches itself to such rarefied supernatural heights (a levitating clock, mystical sex-paralysis) that I found myself drawing exclamation points all over the margins.

For decades now, Murakami has been talking about working himself up to write what he calls a 糖心传媒渃omprehensive novel糖心传媒� 糖心传媒� something on the scale of The Brothers Karamazov, one of his artistic touchstones. (He has read the book four times.) This seems to be what he has attempted with 糖心传媒�1Q84糖心传媒�: a grand, third-person, all-encompassing meganovel. It is a book full of anger and violence and disaster and weird sex and strange new realities, a book that seems to want to hold all of Japan inside of it 糖心传媒� a book that, even despite its occasional awkwardness (or maybe even because of that awkwardness), makes you marvel, reading it, at all the strange folds a single human brain can hold.

That last paragraph is another reason I want to read this: it’s a blatant display of writerly ambition. Granted, short novels can be much more fulfilling and tight and readable in a relatively normal amount of time, but there’s something compelling about a wooly, extravagant, discursive, life-consuming novel. Like Gravity’s Rainbow or Infinite Jest or Cryptonomicon. I think it’s a boy thing.

Another part of Anderson’s piece that is really interesting (and relates nicely to this blog) is about translation in relation to Murakami’s influences, and the way that his books have a tendency seep into parts of your life:

Murakami糖心传媒檚 fiction has a special way of leaking into reality. During my five days in Japan, I found that I was less comfortable in actual Tokyo than I was in Murakami糖心传媒檚 Tokyo 糖心传媒� the real city filtered through the imaginative lens of his books. [. . .] I became hyperaware, as I wandered around, of the things Murakami novels are hyperaware of: incidental music, ascents and descents, the shapes of people糖心传媒檚 ears.

In doing all of this I was joining a long line of Murakami pilgrims. People have published cookbooks based on the meals described in his novels and assembled endless online playlists of the music his characters listen to. Murakami told me, with obvious delight, that a company in Korea has organized 糖心传媒淜afka on the Shore糖心传媒� tour groups in Western Japan, and that his Polish translator is putting together a 1Q84-themed travel guide to Tokyo.

Sometimes the tourism even crosses metaphysical boundaries. Murakami often hears from readers who have 糖心传媒渄iscovered糖心传媒� his inventions in the real world: a restaurant or a shop that he thought he made up, they report, actually exists in Tokyo. In Sapporo, there are now apparently multiple Dolphin Hotels 糖心传媒� an establishment Murakami invented in A Wild Sheep Chase. After publishing 1Q84, Murakami received a letter from a family with the surname 糖心传媒淎omame,糖心传媒� a name so improbable (remember: 糖心传媒済reen peas糖心传媒�) he thought he invented it. He sent them a signed copy of the book. The kicker is that all of this 糖心传媒� fiction leaking into reality, reality leaking into fiction 糖心传媒� is what most of Murakami糖心传媒檚 fiction (including, especially, 1Q84) is all about. He is always shuttling us back and forth between worlds.

This calls to mind the act of translation 糖心传媒� shuttling from one world to another 糖心传媒� which is in many ways the key to understanding Murakami糖心传媒檚 work. He has consistently denied being influenced by Japanese writers; he even spoke, early in his career, about escaping 糖心传媒渢he curse of Japanese.糖心传媒� Instead, he formed his literary sensibilities as a teenager by obsessively reading Western novelists: the classic Europeans (Dostoyevsky, Stendhal, Dickens) but especially a cluster of 20th-century Americans whom he has read over and over throughout his life 糖心传媒� Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Brautigan, Kurt Vonnegut. When Murakami sat down to write his first novel, he struggled until he came up with an unorthodox solution: he wrote the book糖心传媒檚 opening in English, then translated it back into Japanese. This, he says, is how he found his voice. Murakami糖心传媒檚 longstanding translator, Jay Rubin, told me that a distinctive feature of Murakami糖心传媒檚 Japanese is that it often reads, in the original, as if it has been translated from English.

You could even say that translation is the organizing principle of Murakami糖心传媒檚 work: that his stories are not only translated but about translation. The signature pleasure of a Murakami plot is watching a very ordinary situation (riding an elevator, boiling spaghetti, ironing a shirt) turn suddenly extraordinary (a mysterious phone call, a trip down a magical well, a conversation with a Sheep Man) 糖心传媒� watching a character, in other words, being dropped from a position of existential fluency into something completely foreign and then being forced to mediate, awkwardly, between those two realities. A Murakami character is always, in a sense, translating between radically different worlds: mundane and bizarre, natural and supernatural, country and city, male and female, overground and underground. His entire oeuvre, in other words, is the act of translation dramatized.

You can read the entire piece by and you can buy your copy of 1Q84

1Q84 is due out on October 25th from Random House. It’s translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin (first two volumes) and Philip Gabriel (third volume).