9/10.

I posit that books (stories) can be broken roughly into three: the plot, the people, the prose. This triumvirate should be weighed to taste: I, for one, don’t care about characters nearly as much as I do story and language, i.e. “boring” or “bland” persons generally don’t bother me.

I have, however, a penchant for pretty words lined up in fanciful ways, dancing sentences which dazzle and delight. I like to think that I pen prose somewhat in such a style; words rolling after the other, tumbling and neatly avoiding stepping fully into purple prose whilst maintaining a fine polish and veneer. Elegant English (“an oxymoron”, I hear some of you cry), is my end goal. I enjoy the lyrical, the crisp and curt, the exotic and esoteric; rhythm; lack thereof; and so on. I enjoy the words I read, if written well–an extra dimension external to story yet indubitably adding a layer of enjoyment unto it. I have found translated works to tickle my fancy in this regard–viz. Japanese novels. I have read only a few so far, but the words have delighted me each time. This is, of course, in part due to the translator, but there is some constancy in the novels I’ve read, in that the prose is fresh in a way I cannot describe.

Prior to this I’ve read (and would strongly recommend) Kafka on the Shore, Kusamakura, & Manazuru. Across these books I’ve found that the language is never awkward, but it certainly isn’t average or normal either–I think “fresh” is the only way to aptly characterize it. I enjoy it very much, and I think my enjoyment is partially predicated on reading many books, even with prose from varied ages and different dialects. I can see the appeal of the avant-garde after consuming so much of the “typique-garde”, so to speak. Further, thoughts on consuming art have slowly been coalescing–I will probably write further on this at some point, but I don’t believe art must be understood. Art, at least some forms, for some artists, exists as a container for emotions. In this view, the best art induces the strongest emotions. I don’t care to consume art to learn or to grow or to understand–I consume art to feel. I create art to make (future me) you feel.

With some preliminaries now out of the way, I wish to proceed to 1Q84. I think reviews (though this is hardly a serious review) must be contextualized in order to best understand the view of the critic, to see what my words are couched it.

I really enjoyed 1Q84. I liked the prose, of course, for its “freshness”. It is a romance through and through, but layered atop the basic romance are drama, mystery, intrigue, etc. all folded together quite nicely and presented as a complete package. Murakami writes a bit Clancy-esque with paragraphs frequently laced with fastidious trifles. I didn’t really mind–I read fast, and this is in part due to my willingness and tendency to skim or skip such sections. I have learnt the eye to identify and excise these snippets and I exercised such an attack frequently. I think that if I didn’t I would have been more annoyed with the pacing, but as it stands I thought the pace was good. The length, in some sense, adds to the tension; part of the novel is bettered by the temporal distanced induced by the tome’s length. Some plot beats were a touch predictable but enjoyable nonetheless. I liked all the characters as well, and they faded in and out of the frame elegantly I thought.

I liked this novel a lot more than Kafka on the Shore (7 or 8/10?), though I’d have to reread it to properly compare–it has been a year or so, I think. Reading 1Q84 has motivated me to read a lot more Murakami though (and Proust–he seems to be a fan of In Search of Lost Time, so perchance I shall read it) so I will certainly read more of his (older) works. I found it amusing to note that I considered 1Q84 “modern”/“new” as it was written in this century (~2010), but I suppose that is fair in terms of books. I think albums from the 2010s are pretty new too, but that’s definitely a far more controversial take.