1Q84

Murakami sparkles as ever

The publicity surrounding this novel has attracted listeners and readers who have not read Murakami's work before and the negative reviews that some of them have posted here are to be expected. He is not going to be everyone's idea of mesmerizing. But to me and others with whom his writings resonate he is long overdue a Nobel prize for literature.

1Q84 is rather orderly and less fantastical that his other novels but no less gripping. It works on a number of levels - his characters are still social misfits trying to fit in or trying to figure out if they even should, the plot weaves the mundane and dream-like fantasy into a single confused strand of narrative, and violence and sex create their endless ambiguities and problems for the participants.

The sex, whilst often graphic, makes an important point about the the hero and heroine that becomes clearer as the novel progresses. Indeed, the novel displays the triumph of true love over physical loving in a world where the latter has by and large eclipsed the former.

Morality is expertly examined as the novel continues to pose the question as to how to assign right and wrong to any given action, the means or the end; and, like anyone else who has engaged with ethics, never really finds it possible to make a final judgement.

Whilst the book is hardly fast-paced, it is a surprisingly good page-turner and the narration is just fine. It's rather flat in places, failing to deliver the right inflections, but Allison, Marc and Mark are suited to the characters they depict and the shortcomings are easily forgiven.

Every time I finish Murakami novel I can't wait to listen to another. Given how weird they can be, I do wonder what that might say about me! Whenever I try to explain his books to my wife she says, "you're not selling it to me." Perhaps his novels are best consumed by restless, inquiring souls. But I would urge everyone to at least try one. If you like it, then it will open up a whole library of joy.

56 of 58 people found this review helpful

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

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.

35 of 37 people found this review helpful

Too slow for me

Seems an ok storyline but the pace and the narrator just don't work for me, got a couple of hours into it but have given up. Could well be as good as its reported to be but it doesn't work for me as a story for driving to.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Murakami by numbers and much, much too long...

I found a four hour chunk towards the end of this to be suspenseful and absorbing, but otherwise this is dull. I've read a lot of Japanese literature in translation and am comfortable with some of the cool strangeness of it, but it's obvious from the beginning of this that getting the English edition and the audio out quickly was more important to the publisher than editing well and getting a good translation: the language is clunky, repetitive in an ugly way, the speech and dialogue unconvincing: I just can't believe the original prose was like that. The two male narrators were fine, but Allison Hiroto's reading was laboured and in places horribly overacted and I found her voice really irritating. The book contains many of Murakami's trademark motifs, and his imagination amazes me, always. If he'd written this as a hardboiled thriller (a style he borrows from a lot) and had the book been one third of the length, it would have been fantastic, but as it is this is tiring and ultimatley not very satisfying to listen to. Not worth 46 hours of anyone's time...

25 of 27 people found this review helpful

Exceptional *****

I have a long journey to commute to work and decided to join Audible to fill some usually dead time in the car. I started with Stephen Fry's recent autobiography as I love his fiction. Having finished this, I decided to choose something different to my usual taste in fiction, opting for the sci-fi & fantasty genre.... I checked the reviews on Amazon for this book and they were mixed, but the synopsis made me curious.

I have been utterly fascinated by the tale so far. I'm on Chapter 7 and find my time in the car is now the highlight of my day! I love the narration and the story is gripping. The realism of the tale kind of lulls me into a false sense of security, before shaking me with surreal, sublime and actual jaw-dropping moments. The semi-passive experience of listening to a story being read to you is far more jarring and engaging experience when the tale is such a brilliant one.

I would thoroughly recommend this to all but the most prudish and narrow-minded. If you enjoy a diverse taste in fiction you can't fail to love this.... even though I haven't finished the book I would heartily suggest you try this yourself :Dbeta inappVoteInfo

41 of 45 people found this review helpful

Worth more than it's weight in 'whoa'

I had the unique opportunity to read this as a proof prior to it's release. I was absolutely blown away by the imagination of Murakami. Upon logging in and seeing the book has become available here, I didn't even hesitate purchasing it despite my normal rule of never listening to a book I have read.

59 of 67 people found this review helpful

First book I ever gave up on.

I've never given up on a book before, let alone so near to the end but I realised that after a plot which moved forward so glacially slow that I had literally fallen asleep listening to it more than once - I honestly didn't care how the story finished or what happened to the very dull characters involved in it. I've read thousands of books and listened to maybe a hundred audio books of varying sizes (I usually aim for the epic-length ones though) and I've never given up on anything before - I just didn't expect the "climax" of this one to be any more than tepid like the rest of the story had been. The narrators I think were also poorly cast - not that they are poor narrators individually but they both have a very dry and gentle tone so that the two of them together left the delivery feeling very bland.

25 of 28 people found this review helpful

Dreadful narration makes this a difficult listen

Audiobooks depend on good readers to work, for obvious reasons. Sadly Allision Hiroto bungles this one dreadfully. She's best described as 'cooky'. Her airy voice wafts around all over the place, and her delivery is so painfully slow as be quite maddening.

This is a long book, and I intend to suffer through the narration to finish it, but my goodness it can be hard work. Please Audible, get better readers.

42 of 49 people found this review helpful

a bloated, self indulgant white elephant

It is very rare i feel such disappointment in a novel. What a bloated white elephant, had i been reading i would have given up the will to see it through long before the end, but it is harder to justify giving up when somebody else is doing the work of reading for you. So the hours and the miles drifted by and i thought surely the pace will pick up soon or this must be leading to an epic finale, after all, if you expect your reader/listener to accompany you and invest so much time in your story then you should certainly reward their loyalty with a worthy finale, yet like the rest of the novel, it just fizzled out appologetically and i breathed a sigh of relief that our time together was finally over and i could move on. I am already forgetting the characters despite having spent so much time in their world, they were as wet as the story.

22 of 26 people found this review helpful

Strange insight into the Japanese way of life

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

Different, interesting, engaging

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

Aomame on the Expressway, about to contemplate suicide.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Allison Hiroto totoally convinced me that she knew Aomame inside out.
Mark Vietor showed the personal struggles that Tengo faced, and Mark Boyett's baddie was great.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No as it was way too long.

Any additional comments?

It made me Google places, recipes, and the Tokyo expressway on Streetview!

12 of 14 people found this review helpful