book review: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
TL by Jay Rubin & Philip Gabriel
I dont really love Murakami, but this book was definitely his best out of what i've read so far (the wind-up bird chronicle; hard-boiled wonderland & the end of the world; 1Q84). The story is intricate & fits together neatly. The characters are interesting, the story is compelling. I was intensely interested in every 'next chapter' - Murakami does a great job at keeping you hooked on the plot, especially in such a long book (my ebook was 1300 pages). I wanted to read this book every day.
However, (& I think this was probably the translation) the prose was pretty bad. I got used to the style & it didn't bother me after a while, but certain sections' stiltedness really stuck out. Even if Murakami just has a simple writing style, I really feel like minimal work was put into the prose. The sex scenes were especially bad. BUT I'm not a professional translator, & I in fact have no knowledge of how professional translation works!
Another thing (that probably contributed to the length) was the excessive amount of repetition... However, I liked it. I thought that every time a scene was gone over again, usually new information was given to the reader. The repetition was a good way of highlighting what was important in a character's life. Finally, the plot was very interlaced, & featured original fantasy magical concepts that were complicated to visualize. The repetition helped me understand the story better. But I mention this because some people might not enjoy this repetitiveness in such a long book, which I would say definitely felt padded to me. Not much happens, & I don't think it deserved its final page count. But I didn't mind reading 1Q84 for so long at all.
