1Q84-Book 1-*SPOILERS!*

[Bean]

the constant descriptions of penises, nipples and breasts certainly gets a little odd, and the Fuka-Eri chapter with Tengo really put me off. I think Marukami definitely has a fantasy about a woman with large breasts since all his main characters seem to have a fascination with them.

Back to the questions posed by LRB:

1) I agree with Laura. However, I think she is actually just emotionally disconnected with life and doesn't seem to relate.

2) I find it really weird that every character has some kind of traumatic childhood, although there are very few characters so I guess he is only writing about the weird and traumatised ones. Some of them, like Aomame's best friend, didn't have a traumatic childhood, but did have a seriously traumatic college life and marriage, as evidenced by her ultimate demise.

In real life, I guess many people do have a fairly traumatic upbringing, but I think that sometimes it is relative. In one of the chapters, where Tengo works with the two guys who left the Society of Witnesses in early adulthood, Marukami makes the point that they would not be able to adjust to life outside the society since it was already part of their value system. I guess this is true for all of us, we get so used to the way we live that we struggle to adjust to any major change. Also, what we may see as a traumatic upbringing, may be to others perfectly normal or acceptable. I think of some of the children in our country for whom it is quite normal to walk 10km to school every day in shorts and a T-shirt and no shoes, regardless of the weather and to have one meal a day. This is normal for them, but would be totally tramatic to me. (That doesn't mean I think it is acceptable for them, my point is that they don't know any different.)

As for traumatic events, I think everyone experiences some kind of traumatic even in their lives. Sometimes we learn how to adapt to it and live with the consequences, and sometime it gets the better of us with far reaching consequences on every aspect of our lives.

3) I found the cross references to the book 1984 very interesting - that Big Brother had become so commonplace that it was replaced by the Little People.

4) In reading the interaction between Aomame and Leader, although pretty confusing, his explanation that there was only one reality at one point in time for each individual struck home for me. Yes, there are different realities, but each of us is only capable of experiencing a single reality at any one time.

Some further questions:

When is Aomame actually going to use her ball kicking practice and will she use the gun?

Why can the Little People not act directly on Aomame and Tengo?

How many of us would notice that there were two moons in the sky?

[Damy]

I finished the trilogy last night. The books are crap! Plain and simple.

The first two books were... kind of okay. Most of the time, I was bored, but Murakamis style of writing is pleasant - I'll give him that. It's a nice read here and there for people who just want to read something before they go to bed. I'm sure you can read 1Q84 over the course of months. Things get repeated all the time, so it's impossible to loose track of the - henh - Story. But that's about it. And with the third book, things went downhill incredible fast. My god, what exactly was the story about anyway? Lots of questions and some mysteries, but in the end, nothing makes sense, because nothing really matters. Murakami clearly didn't give a crap, so why should I? It's like LOST all over again. I can hear Carlton Cuse: "It's about the journey, the characters, not the story." Wrong! It's not an either/or situation, not for me. Give me a good story and good characters and I'll believe you anything. I'll believe in the force and magic, but you can't force every shit down my throat. At least give me likable characters. Nada. I didn't care about them. I connected with Tengo, because he's an average guy. At the same time, he's passive and boring and so is his storyline. Aomames Story is much more promising, but she felt blunt all the time and she acted like an idiot. They all did. Okay, sometimes, the characters have to ask the wrong questions and sometimes, they have to do stupid things to make the story work. I get that. Every author will write himself in a corner once in a while. It's not exactly what a professional should do, but it happens. Not a problem. But this?!

So, Tengo, without wanting it, gets bamboozled by Fu©kaeri, while he can't move and - of course -, he just shrugged it off. Huh? Come again? Basically it was rape. Some kind of fantasy-sperm-teleportation-rape, but still rape. So, there's Aomame, killing rapists, because, well, its wrong (and it its), but only, when Men do it? It's kind of cool when Fukaeri does it, because [Murakami mode] she's young and all and her boobs are pretty big. Did I mention her big boobs already? I think I really should mention again, that her boobs are kind of big, in case someone forgot. Boobs. Big. Got it? Good. I'll get back to that later again. But first, let me describe her pubic hair in all her glory, because we still have to fill a few hundred pages...[/Murakami mode]

Just not my cup of tea.

If you guys enjoy 1Q84 - good for ya. Just carry on.

But if anyone here is turning the pages in hopes for things to get better... believe me, it won't.

Hoho

HOHO!

-.-

[CalvinHobbes]

*Sort of spoilers from entire series, not just book 1*

I knew from the beginning I wouldn't like this book, but I forced myself (and really forced, I never got into it) through the series. At times I thought it would get interesting, but because of the repetitiveness I couldn't be enthralled. The concept was good, just not the rest of it. I felt like I knew the entire time what was going to happen.

I felt like more than half of the book was just Murakami trying to make the book nearly 1,000 pages without any real reason for the length. There was too much info. Did you know Tengo is fixated on his mother's breasts that were sucked on by a man that was not his father?? No? Let's talk about Fuka-Eri's breasts. Or where Aomame got her name 5 times. Or what she eats to prevent constipation. Like...really. I understand that it's just a style of writing to consistently repeat and add more detail than other writers, but it's not a style I enjoy. I do not suffer from short-term memory loss just yet.

I have been reading reviews on different websites, and one discussion forum says that she enjoyed the books because they were not read back to back, and it was not the author's intention for someone to read them back to back.

These were just my opinions, and if you really liked it don't hate me

[Bean]

I finished the trilogy over the weekend. Not the best use of my time - I won't be reading any more Murakami.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

Just finished Book I last night. Ready to dive into a discussion. Some random thoughts/questions:

(1) Is Aomame a feminist?

(2) What's with all the traumatic childhoods? It seems no character escaped their youth unscathed. Do you think, to one extent or another, that's true of everyone (like you and I, not just the book characters)?

(3) Anyone else waiting to find out that the little people are all named Rumplestiltskin?

(4) Is there "only one reality"? In real life? In this book?

2) Most people I know had something heavily negative in their childhood that effects them as adults, whether its overbearing parents like the protagonists or done sort of abuse. You'd be surprised how few people don't have something. I've got one myself.

4) I think there's only 1 reality in real life. In the book I think that there are certain people who can see and/or influence a secret part of reality, the part with 2 moons.

Just finished the first book and it was meh. I really didn't like the very end when the author feels the need to start laying everything right out for you during the pillow talk. I like trying to figure stuff out on my own, and that kind of ruined part of that for me. Dud it in other places as well. You can definitely tell it was written by a dude who really wants to write about sex. All of those parts came off awkwardly dudish, like he was describing things to his buddy at a bar.

I'm not going to finish the series right now, maybe never. I'll take a break and come back to it when I'm bored of whatever else I'm reading. Time to start grinding my way through "Good Calories, Bad Calories" again.

[LRB]

I am officially giving up on this trilogy. I'm about half way through the third book, and liking it less and less -- perhaps because, in the beginning, I could convince myself it would get better but there's now less and less time for it to do so.

And other than my question 3 (rumpelstilstkin), I no longer give a rat's a$$ about any of the conversations that could have been started around the other questions I asked.

But little people who spin things out of thin air? I want to know if they're related to the guy who spins gold out of straw.

[livingroovy]

I finished this book too... it was... interesting. It was my first Murakami book, and while I do enjoy his style of writing, I just couldn't believe that after ALL THAT, the book just didn't really go anywhere! We never actually got to understand or figure out anything! And maybe that's kind of the point. BUT I don't have to like it. Glad I read it, not sure I'll read any more of the author for quite awhile.

[Bacon]

I finished the trilogy last night. The books are crap! Plain and simple.

Just not my cup of tea.

If you guys enjoy 1Q84 - good for ya. Just carry on.

But if anyone here is turning the pages in hopes for things to get better... believe me, it won't.

Basically what Damy said... almost word for word. I was ok with it until the 3rd book and then I just wanted it to end.... which it eventually did... rather unsatisfactorily.

[notcreative]

I just started the third book. I probably won't be finished with it by the time this challenge is over, because I don't get much time each day for reading, but so far I plan to finish reading the whole thing. Murakami is always a little out there with his writing, and I usually like it, but I am going to reserve judgment until I'm finished with the book.

[PrincessHeather]

I'm glad I checked in here... I was way behind on getting started with this book, and after the first few chapters, not interested. I get the feeling I won't ever be. Thanks!

[Sambalina]

I gave up mid-way through book 2. I kept forgetting to read it - a sure sign I wasn't interested. I enjoyed it in a vague kind of way, but don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by not finishing.

[Oogiem]

OK I officially give up as well. I didn't even make it through Book 1.

Initially I was very curious about Aomame. I like mysteries, spy novels, thrillers in general and with the start of her as a hired killer I was hoping for something mildly interesting. The initial murder/killing of a needle basically pithing the victim was also interesting, I've used that as a murder weapon in my own mystery novel that I wrote last year for NaNoWriMo except my weapon was a knitting needle. However nothing was done to get my interest in the character and her profession after that. The whole ideaof reality changing underneath her could go somewhere but it's taking so long to get there that I can't slog through the junk to find it and from comments here it may never happen.

The whole series of sections on Tengo and Fuka-Eri are just plain boring. The repetition reminds me of a newly finished NaNo novel, where you do anything to hit your word count, but it could have benefited from significant editing later.

Personally I think there are hints of ideas there that might make good short stories or novella's but fall flat attempting a long novel.

I've never to my knowledge given up on a book before, so this is actually a first. I'll leave it on my kindle for now, in case I mange to get further but for now I'm officially giving up on it.

[notcreative]

I think this book is going to have me avoiding trilogies from now on. I should have learned my lesson with other trilogies, because by the third book it's always just dragging on and on and on. The only reason I haven't given up on this one is because I am listening to the audiobook version and it takes very little effort to listen while I'm doing something else like housecleaning.