3 Book Reviews

1Q84

Haruki Murakami’s latest book has an alluring cover. On one side, the closely-cropped face of Aomame stares at you; on the other is the similarly cropped face of Tengo.

The clever title plays with the year 1984, the “Q” in Japanese meaning the number “9.” Silly me, I first thought the book was about a person with a low I.Q. 1984 and 1Q84 represent two different worlds, the “actual” world and the world that has two moons. In 1Q84, Big Brother is watching you in ways you could never imagine.

Aomame is a killer hired by a shadowy dowager, at first to give her stretching lessons and then to kill men known to be wife-beaters. Aomame’s not a beautiful woman and she’s extremely shy, but she’s sexy and knows how to use her body to attract men. The love of her life is Tengo, a boy she briefly knew in elementary school. Tengo is brilliant, but is working at a low-level job at a “cram” school, a place students study to be able to get into better colleges. His real passion, however, is writing novels. An editor he knows gets him to agree to re-write a bizarre novel titled Air Chrysalis, written by a 17-year old girl. The novel wins a newcomer’s prize, and things go downhill from there.

Leader, Little People, dead goats, child rape and two moons are all part of 1Q84. Truthfully, I found this part of the novel dull. The love story of Aomame and Tengo is nicely done, if you can wrap your mind around pregnancy without sex.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Interestingly, I read Murakami’s book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running in the middle of reading 1Q84. Murakami wrote this book prior to 1Q84 and there are hints of the novel in his memoir about running. In the memoir, Murakami writes about how running informs his fiction. Personally, as a writer who runs (although not at his level), this short book was a revelation to me, about one of my favorite writers and also about myself. In the book, he writes about his love for Raymond Chandler, who Murakami translated into Japanese. I went to the library and checked out a four-book series by Chandler. I read three-quarters of The Big Sleep but was bored by Philip Marlowe and his detective work. Maybe I’m just not a mystery reader. Mysteries, even when well written tend to give me a headache.

A Judgement in Stone

I picked up this little gem at the Crothers’ house in New Hampshire. Ruth Rendell, whom I’d confused with Ruth Reichel, the food writer, is a baroness who’s written literary mysteries for 45 years.

Didn’t I just say mysteries gave me a headache? Judgement (English book, English spelling) isn’t really a mystery, more a psychological thriller in which the reader knows more about what’s happened than the police. A monstrous woman, Eunice, who can’t bear the idea that anyone would know she was illiterate, will do anything to guard her secret. She murders her father, blackmails “friends,” and murders her employers and their children, the latter with no affect. Eunice is unloved and unloving—as cold as they come. The upper middle class family she murders, with the aid and encouragement of her lunatic, religious fanatic acquaintance, are pillars of the community. Ms. Rendell is wise to paint them in broad strokes that discourage the reader from becoming attached to them, but her intermittent reminders about the Valentine’s Day Massacre keeps one on edge from beginning to end.

I look forward to reading more Ruth Rendell when I finish yet another mystery plucked from the Crothers archive.