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1Q84

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1Q84

By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
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About this listen

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realises, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - 'Q' is for 'question mark'. A world that bears a question.

Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

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.

BONUS AUDIO: Audible interviews the translators of 1Q84, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel.

©2011 Haruki Murakami (P)2011 Audible Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mind-bending

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Critic reviews

"It is a work of maddening brilliance and gripping originality, deceptively casual in style...vibrating with wit, intellect and ambition." ( The Times)
"Eerie, suspenseful and packed full of gorgeous ordinary details and provocative extraordinary events...funny, fresh and intensely surreal. Unmissable." ( Marie Claire)
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This story starts slowly, but I enjoyed the detailed writing about Japanese society. Suddenly I didn't want to stop listening, I needed to know what happened. I will certainly download more by this author. Don't give up on this as it gets better and better.

Story sneaks up on you, so don't give up too soon

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In general it’s a great story but wow, just wow it’s overly long. And repetitive. If all of the repeated conversation and the ‘he echoed’ and the ‘she said again’ and the recaps and the retelling of the same part of the story in a different voice were taken out, this may be just a long book rather than a book you get so much relief from actually finishing having made yourself stick it out. 46 hours for a story line that could be explained in approximately 5 sentences. The descriptions are beautifully rich, in my mind (and I am no expert) the awful length appears to be down to poor editing. Which is amusing when you think about the people in the story. Anyway. Having just finished it I’m feeling particularly proud of myself. I think Kafka on the Shore is a better book.

Far too long. Read if you are stuck in a hospital bed for a few weeks.

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It's hard to review this book without spoilers but I'll do my best...
Firstly, it's LONG! Really long. Like a lot of audible users who listen whilst commuting, I appreciate long books and collections and in terms of value for money this book is up there in the top 10.
Secondly, the narration is amazing. You'll get a little frustrated at times with the pace of the book and this goes a long way towards explaining why it's so long.
Lastly the story, which unfolds from the perspective of 3 main characters with a different narrator for each. There are some odd moments where characters who pop up in multiple threads end up having three different "voices" and this kind of spoils the immersion a little bit.
Also, there's a whole lot of build up to what is effectively a pretty lacklustre and very abrupt ending. I honestly thought I'd missed a chapter or three when the story ended or that this was part of a trilogy.
I can't help feeling like I've spent several weeks slowly and patiently inching closer and closer to what promised to be an incredible treasure, only for it to turn out to be an empty box... An enjoyable journey to a disappointing destination.
If this is what Japanese literature is like, you can keep it I'm afraid.

Long

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What a frustrating experience. There are some intriguing fantasy be elements, which are barely explored. There are some interesting characters, but their primary motivations are less believable than the fantasy elements. And there is some lovely poetical descriptive detail -- but mostly, the detail is utterly mundane and unbelievably repetitive. Do we really need to know the brand name of every single article of clothing that a character is wearing, especially when these same exact descriptions of the same exact ensemble have been enumerated half a dozen times before? I spent the last third of the book wondering whether Murakami was getting paid by the word, or whether his objective was to cultivate a sense of tediousness.

In any case, I didn't enjoy it. but it does get an extra star for having excellent production values.

Occasionally beautiful, but mostly just boring

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The story was good, but could easily have been told in half-time. The use of a lot of repetitive phrases and passages made this all the more clearer. However, story was interesting and I would even say compelling if much shorter.

I'd also like to point out two minor gripes I had: 1) seemingly too many sex references. I'm no prude but when they are talking about pubic hair and the such every other chapter, it just feels slightly unnecessary; 2) The authors/translators favourite word is "said". Why not exclaimed, gasped, yelled, hollered or the other 101 different words one could list??

In conclusion good, but could be better.

The authors favourite word is "said"

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This was a trilogy, three epic novels rolled into one massive Audible. The main characters slip into a subtly altered reality or a quirky parallel universe. The writer is obviously a master storyteller, the story unfolds in a leisurely but powerfully dynamic fashion. The translators and readers have done a brilliant job.
Never read Haruki Murakami before but I'm hooked.

Enjoyed every minute of it

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If you could sum up 1Q84 in three words, what would they be?

Surreal, slow-paced, enjoyable

What was one of the most memorable moments of 1Q84?

I haven't finished the book yet, I'm 4/5 of the way through, but the slow reveal of Aomame's character was particularly good.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The way the narrator changes between character-centric chapters works well. Unlike some who have reviewed, I thought the narrators were good, and had no complaints about their style (but this is always going to be personal taste). Give the sample a listen if you're worried

Any additional comments?

This book is immensely long, and has been entertaining me for nearly 30 hours so far. It's a slow burner, so you have to be patient, but it's been perfect for the commute to work. I've never read a Murakami novel before, and think I actually like this better on audiobook than I would have done on paper, as you can let some of the longer passages wash over you! Great, really absorbing, and has made my ride to work a lot more interesting!

Lengthy, absorbing listen

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It took me quite some time to get through this book but after a while its pacing feels like a kind of magical ethereal meditation. Great narration of all the characters. Well worth the. 46 hours it'll take you read!

A fantastically magical epic

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An amazing world - perfect narration.

Perfect story to get lost in - often paused the book to check locations online.

Another World

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It's a long book and all the better for it because this really isn't about moving the plot forward. Rather, Murakami creates a wholly believable world which slowly starts to go wrong. However, I loved it for the ambience and the detail of character rather than the stranger side of the plot which for me is unusual.
I'm not a fan of split narration but here it works well. They are evocative in a way that add real substance to the characters and generates the other-worldly tenor of the book.

Reinforces the idea of Japan's other worldliness

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