I finally finished Haruki Murakami’s runaway bestseller 1Q84. I actually had begun reading it over the Christmas break, where I got up to page 650 (there are 920 pages… quite a lengthy novel). Then, the semester started and I was obligated to read other things for school, and thus, had to drop 1Q84. So, I was finally able to finish it and boy, do I have a lot to say about it.

At face value, I really enjoyed 1Q84. I thought that the plot was good and although I wasn’t blown away by the writing, I definitely can’t say it was poorly penned. I mean, something positive has to be said for reading a 920 page novel to completion.  The characters were well developed and there was definitely thought put into the structure of the plot. I have to give props to Murakami for creating an entertaining story— I mean, he’s getting people excited about reading, and that’s always good!

However, I do have a somewhat large bone to pick with Murakami and his novel. I think that upon analyzing the text further, Murakami makes some highly disturbing and very untrue assertions about Japanese society. Being an East Asian Studies major, I often feel like I have to “defend” Japan, most commonly against people that are my parent’s or grandparent’s age. I sort of resent Murakami because in a way, I feel like he’s made my job of “defending Japan” harder.

In other words, I feel like Murakami has framed Japan from a very ‘Western’ (and commercially profitable) perspective, as if the plan all along was for him to be published in English. It’s a little too slick for my liking, and I think that it’s a real disservice. The novel is hyper-sexualized and just plain…. weird. In my opinion, it takes a very ‘orientalist’ view, ‘mystifying’ Japan to the same extent as dated works like James Clavell’s Shogun(which I actually liked as a novel lol). I find this ridiculous, and actually pretty offensive. I can only surmise that this is either being done 1) unintentionally or 2) to sell lots of copies in English.

One other thing: in Japanese, the title of the book makes much more sense. It’s a play on the title of the famous novel 1984. The digits read aloud in Japanese would be pronouned ‘いち、きゅう、はち、よん’ (pronounced: ichi, kyuu (like the letter, Q), hachi, yon). Therefore, by replacing 9, or ‘kyuu’ with ‘Q,’ nothing in the pronunciation of the word is actually changing in Japanese. The only thing that changes is the stylized numbers themselves. In English, this affect is lost, and it just is… weird…. and stupid.I think he should have just titled the book “Cat Town,” the same way he titled an excerpt of the book published as an essay in the New Yorker.

Glad I have the time to read again. Next on my list is Days and Nights of Love and War(about the oppression faced by Latin Americans in the 20th century) by Uragyian journalist and activist Eduardo Galeano and Good Calories, Bad Calories(no, it’s not a diet book… but rather, it talks about the history of ‘being healthy’ as it is defined in our culture and provides scientific evidence for links between certain types of carbs and other diseases) by scientist Gary Taubes. I’ll let you know how those are.

What’s on your reading list?

I’m heading back to New York for the weekend. The train ride between Montreal and NYC is absolutely gorgeous (albeit 11 hours). Right now I’m watching the sun setting over the Hudson River, like a huge pink pearl melting into the heat of the orange horizon. 

Kind of reminds me of a poem I read once. I think it was by Hafiz? It talked about the sun shooting into the sky vested in a hot red party dress. I’ll try to find it, though on second thought, I’m not sure if women wore party dresses in Hafiz’s time… 

The Hudson River is sort of special for me; it’s a huge part of New York City, where I was born, and Westchester County, where my family lives now. If you follow the Hudson up north, it goes right into Canada where I’m studying now at University. The Amrtrak also runs along the Hudson on its Montreal-NY route, and it just so happens that my first word happened to be ‘Amtrak.’ I’m not kidding. Most people’s first words are ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’ or ‘Bottle,’ but nope, mine was Amtrak! I think I caught the travel bug REALLY early.

My Dad used to take me to the park down the block from our apartment in Astoria, Queens and push me on the swing-set (my favorite) and whenever the Amtrak would pass over the train trestle that ran adjacent, he’d cry out ‘AMTRAK!’ Apparently, I would laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and one day, I screamed ‘AMTRAK!’ too :) Kind of a strange first word huh? 

It’s upsetting that the government decided to build the huge Indian Point Nuclear Powerplant on the river. The Hudson River holds a lot of significance for not only me, but many other people living in the state of New York. It’s our water, our drinking supply, the backbone to sustaining our nutrition. After everything that happened at the Fukushima Plant last March near Tokyo in Japan, I think many of us were rudely awakened to the wasteful lifestyle nuclear power has created for us. I can’t even imagine the trauma everyone I know at home would face, not to mention the total and complete change in lifestyle that would occur should something happen at Indian Point. 

LOL, well that turned unintentionally dark. Whelp, we’ll be pulling into Penn Station pretty soon, so I’m gonna wrap it up. I’m coming home for a huge party some family friends are throwing, so I’ll have some funner things to write about on my ride back up… hoping the WiFi is working. 

Until then, take care!

^^^the love monster

This year has been a rather interesting one in terms of friendships, and I’ve come to some important realizations. Many have ended (some have ended in arguments, some have ended through indifference), and many have formed. Some of them are being worked on as I type. lol.

What I’ve realized, though, is that the people who want to be in your life will put themselves there. Also, some people don’t know how to put themselves there, but want to.  I think it’s important to recognize effort and intent, and unfortunately, in terms of reliability, words are pretty useless in assessing these criteria. I think action is what is most important, which sometimes may incorporate words. An example of this is a letter; though the words in a letter are important, the fact of the matter is that the sending of the letter is equally as important. 

I’ve felt stupid for being misguided by words. I think we all have at one point, and that’s okay. Not to say that we should totally disregard the impact of words, but recognizing a fortification of those words through action paints a fuller picture of someone’s intentions. 

For those of us figuring out who we are, we’re sometimes blind to the “love-monster” inside someone else (yes, I just created that term lol). I define a “love-monster” to be somebody who uses you for affirmation or affection, but solely for those purposes. Once they’ve sucked all your affirmation powers away and it’s time for some reciprocity, they throw you away and move on to their next victim. 

Muahahahahaha. 

Kind of scary heh. 

I think we all have a “love-monster,” but how we choose to curb it says a lot about our personality. Even acknowledging your “love-monster” says a lot! 

Anyway, remember folks! It’s about quality and not quantity ;-) 

rawr.