{"id":476,"date":"2010-01-02T23:02:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-03T04:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=476"},"modified":"2010-01-02T23:02:23","modified_gmt":"2010-01-03T04:02:23","slug":"1q84-the-neverending-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=476","title":{"rendered":"1Q84: The Neverending Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A few days ago, I finally managed to drag myself across the final page of the second volume of Murakami Haruki’s latest magnum opus, 1Q84<\/a><\/em>. 1100 pages long, the story of budding novelist Tengo and female assassin Aomame starts out strong, but after a couple hundred pages, it felt like the fizz drained out of the tale. Even Murakami’s usual skill at polishing up gems of sentences seem to fade. I generally like Murakami’s works (I’ll be teaching the brilliant Sputnik Sweetheart<\/a><\/em> this coming quarter, for example), but this one just didn’t do it for me. In particular, the second volume<\/a> dragged on. And on. And on. <\/p>\n

Now word comes that a third volume of the saga will be published in a couple of months<\/a>. Granted, there are all sorts of loose plot ends to resolve (whatever happened to Komatsu, the editor, for example), but having only just escaped from the tome, I feel little real need to trace those through to some sort of conclusion. On the other hand, with 1100 pages of reading labor already invested in the narrative, can I afford not to read the conclusion when it appears? What is a harried professor of Japanese literature to do? <\/p>\n

Maybe I’ll just go back and read 1973-nen no Pinball<\/a><\/em> again. It’s shorter, for starters. <\/p>\n