1Q84 (162 page)

by Haruki Murakami

The introduction, discussion questions, and suggested further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of
1Q84
, the magnum opus of critically acclaimed and best-selling novelist, Haruki Murakami, author of
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
,
Norwegian Wood
, and
Kafka On the Shore.

Set in 1984, Haruki Murakami’s expansive new novel tells the story of the deeply intertwined fates of its two remarkable protagonists, Tengo and Aomame.

Tengo and Aomame were grade school classmates who experienced a moment of mystical union when Aomame, a girl shunned for belonging to a fringe religious group, suddenly seized Tengo’s hand and looked deeply into his eyes. Their paths diverged shortly after Aomame’s impulsive and ambiguous gesture, but each was left profoundly changed by it. For the next 20 years, they are held in the gravitational pull of this brief moment of connection.

Now they are nearly thirty. Tengo is a math teacher and unpublished novelist, drifting rather aimlessly through his life, with no clear sense of purpose or ambition. Aomame is a fitness instructor, bodyworker and, most importantly, an assassin of men who have violently abused their wives.

When Komatsu, an unscrupulous and cynical editor, asks Tengo to rewrite a story by 17-year-old Fuka-Eri so that it can be considered for a major literary prize, Tengo realizes he’s entering into a devil’s bargain. But he’s so taken with the story that he is unable to resist Komatsu’s offer. Accepting the task opens up a Pandora’s box of perils that far surpass even Tengo’s and Komatsu’s worst fears. The novel,
Air Chrysalis
, becomes an immediate best seller, attracting widespread media attention that threatens to uncover Komatsu’s and Tengo’s scam. More ominously, the novel has aroused the ire of the “little people,” a malevolent group of other-worldly miniature spirits.

Aomame meanwhile has her own secrets. Employed by an elderly dowager, she stealthily and expertly murders men who have abused their wives but remain unprosecuted. When she accepts the assignment to kill the heavily protected leader of Sakigake, the very religious cult that Fuka-Eri had fled and written about in
Air Chrysalis
, she too enters a world of danger she never could have imagined. She has literally entered another world, one that is nearly identical to the ordinary world of 1984 except that it has two moons in the sky. And in this new world, the flow of time—and rules of reality—have been subtly altered.

Blurring the line between possible and impossible, linear and non-linear time, fiction and reality, fate and free will,
1Q84
is both a metaphysical mind-teaser and a fast-paced thriller where the stakes for Tengo and Aomame couldn’t be any higher. Murakami’s most ambitious novel to date,
1Q84
is also an extraordinary love story, a story about the power of a single moment of deep connection to transcend time and space—and justify even the greatest of risks.

What are the pleasures of reading such a long work, of staying with the same characters over such a long period of time?

What elements of the mystery genre does
1Q84
employ? How does Murakami keep readers guessing about what will happen next? What are some of the book’s most surprising moments?

Why would Murakami choose to set his story in 1984, the year that would serve as the title for George Orwell’s famous novel about the dangers of Big Brother?

Does this statement hold true throughout the novel? Is there only one reality, despite what appears to be a second reality that Aomame and Tengo enter?

Do the events in the novel seem fated or do the characters have free will?

What type of person is Aomame? What qualities make her extraordinary?

Is it true that Aomame and the dowager have done nothing wrong? Or are they simply rationalizing their anger and the desire for vengeance that arises from their own personal histories?

Why does he agree to do it?

How does rewriting
Air Chrysalis
change Tengo as a writer? How does it affect the course of his life?

How do the events that occur on the night of the huge thunderstorm alter the fates of Aomame, Tengo, Fuka-Eri, and the dowager? Why do Aomame and the dowager let go of their anger after the storm?

How does Murakami make him more sympathetic as the novel progresses? How do you respond to his death?

How does Aomame arrive at such a firm resolve? In what ways is the novel about overcoming the feeling of powerlessness that at various times paralyzes Aomame, Ayumi, Tengo, Fuka-Eri, and all the women who are abused by their husbands? What enables Aomame to come into her own power?

What does the novel as a whole seem to say about fringe religious groups? How does growing up in the Society of Witnesses affect Aomame? How does growing up in Sakigake cult affect Fuka-Eri? Does Leader appear to be a true spiritual master?

What is the appeal of the fantastic elements in the novel—the little people,
maza
and
dohta,
the air chrysalis, two moons in the sky, alternate worlds, etc.? What do they add to the story? In what ways does the novel question the nature of reality and the boundaries between what is possible and not possible?

What makes the love story of Tengo and Aomame so compelling? What obstacles must they overcome to be together? Why was the moment when Aomame grasped Tengo’s hand in grade school so significant?

In what ways does
1Q84
question and complicate conventional ideas of authorship? How does it blur the line between fictional reality and ordinary reality?

How do those lyrics relate to
1Q84
?

What role does belief play in the novel? Why does Murakami end the book with the image of Tengo and Aomame gazing at the moon until it becomes “nothing more than a gray paper moon, hanging in the sky” (this page)?

Paul Auster,
The New York Trilogy;
Roberto Bolano,
2666;
Julio Cortazar,
Hopscotch;
Umberto Eco,
The Prague Cemetery;
Neal Stephenson,
Cryptonomicon
; Kurt Vonnegut,
Slaughterhouse Five;
David Foster Wallace,
Infinite Jest.