IQ84

IQ84…

By Haruki Murakami…..

Book review

Mild spoilers…. nothing which will give the story away!

Rating….3.5/5 (only because I am not a big fan of fantasy or magic or voodoo or dystopian fiction!)

Let me start by this line…(this is not in the novel though!)

‘ The sky was blue and he looked at the moon…’

If it’s a normal story then the sky is actually blue and there’s only the moon!
But if it’s Murakami then apparently you have to think and read beyond the words! Maybe the sky being blue is only a reflection of your loneliness or melancholy!….maybe the moon is not normal in the true sense of the word! In any case you must read between the lines!!

But then why this special treatment to Murakami!? Because he has apparently established himself as the master of Surrealism and abstract! I made the grave mistake of reading his previous Norwegian wood as a routine coming of age story but apparently there was so much more in between the words and some unsaid emotions! Still think it’s over hyped though!!..

So while Murakami can get away with magic, mayhem and dystopian fantasy; any Indian author mentions the word magic he or she is immediately hanged by the literary rope! Not fair at all!!

My second step onto Murakami territory was slow! Close to 2000 pages (this book was apparently realeased as three volumes and sold more than a million copies!)

To be fair though the language, the grammar and the retelling was pretty straightforward and clean which made the pages turn (or swipe! Since I read it as an EBOOK!) pretty fast!

One of the problems with Ebook is that you may not know the size of the book beforehand (note to self- see the end page number next time!!).

This is a major problem since my time is rationed to the last minute and to devote so much is an ardous task indeed! And the fact that Murakami takes long time to come to the point does not help one bit!

In a short brief this is a love story which transcends time (and year!!) And the way all the characters gel in is quite good!

So on one side we have a bored mathematics teacher who in spite of having an affair with a married woman is lonely in life and on another side we have a trainer by day and assassin by night green peas (read the book!) Gal!…made for each other you might say!!

Lots of sex and violence in between with an almost casual description (different I would say!).

Then you have a confused half baked (literally!!) Girl who just fades in and out along with many quirky characters who are nothing but props!

The alternate and parallel narrative is very nicely done though! And when you get the flow you actually feel sad that it’s over!

Predictable ending though some questions are left hanging in the sky!

If anyone has read this then we can discuss!

Next Murakami here I come!…..kafka!