1Q84 (いちきゅうはちよん Ichi-Kyū-Hachi-Yon)
First published in Japanese in three volumes between 2009 and 2010.
Translated into English by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel in 2011.
Carl Mathew Strecher, in his book The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami, introduces the concept of dual works: the first work written in literary journalistic mode and the second in fictional mode, with the latter playing off the information of the former to create “journalistic fiction” which offers “double exposure” of the same events. In the case of 1Q84, he suggests that Murakami’s earlier research undertook to write the non-fiction account Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche influenced his later work 1Q84:
“The working assumption…is that the cult portrayed in 1Q84 as “Sakigake” is a fictional depiction of the Aum Shinrikyō, or a cult very like it, in its earliest phases.”—Carl Mathew Strecher
BOA’s favorite quote:
“A ragged line of sparrows sat on an electrical line, constantly switching positions like musical notes being rewritten. A crow with a large beak came to rest on top of a mercury vapor lamp, cautiously surveying his surroundings as he mulled over his next move. A few streaks of clouds floated off high in the sky, so high and far away that they were like abstract concepts unrelated to the affairs of men. With his back to the patient, Tengo gazed for a while at this scene outside. Things that are living, and things that are not. Things that move, and things that don’t.”—Haruki Murakami, 1Q84