Reading the Chunksters discussion

It's Week 3!! What are you thoughts on this section?


And since it's Monday and I need a giggle...This week's Cat.

Kristi, I hope your Monday was not bad after all!

This section is both intriguing and slow. On one hand, I understand its deliberate languor. The book is big enough, and you can not play all your cards at once. On the other hand, I enjoy Murakami's prose (and the translators' tremendous input). The prose is detailed, tangy, decisive, implicit and explicit, rich, but also accessible and intelligible.

I also think that Murakami is possibly the biggest advocate of the feminine psyche. Aomame is absolutely believable as a woman, and you do not feel any condescending notes when she is described or her thoughts are revealed.

As far as the double narrative is concerned, our expectations that something is wrong with the world Aomame is in have been confirmed. There is also an interesting episode how Aomame auto-suggests her own explanation. It is possibly one of the most intriguing moments of the novel on a personal level. We all autosuggest at a certain period of our lives, but to see how it is taking place in the mind of another person is one of the most intimate literary experiences.

Tengo's narrative is more revealing. We learn that Fuka-Eri experienced/witness something dramatic during her adolescence in this commune and possibly more revealing stories will follow.
I also liked that gradually and very slowly Murakami shows that these narratives might merge. I found two cross-references of small insignificant facts in both narratives. Aomame mentions NHK fee collectors while Tengo's narrative contains an allusion to one of those acts of violence that makes Aomame believe that she is in another 1984, in 1Q84 as she names this reality.

Have we already lost everybody? The book is excellent, and it is frustrating that so many people voted for it and either are not reading or commenting.

I'm here! I've read the whole book, and I've been listening to it a second time on audio book as the group reads.

There's something that makes me a bit uncomfortable with the Professor. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is, but I've felt that way on both my initial reading and my second time with listening.

I feel like at this point is where some of the two stories start to converge. Aomame discovers the police battle with the Sakigake in the papers, and then we discover that Fuka-Eri came from this commune.

On another note, I had a hard time forcing myself to read the book in Fuka-Eri's described cadence. It's been a great experience to hear it from the narrator of Tengo's sections on the audio book.

My curiosity is why Aomame can't remember the news of the gunfight between the radicals and the cops. Is this significant later on in the book??? We shall see.

I did not write anything because what Zulfiya said was so spot on. Next time I will put something, even if it's I agree.

Oh... I should have taken her seriously on the 1Q84 scenerio. I thought that maybe coming out of that stairwell she was supposed to miss this in order to dig deeper into that story. I did not think she was serious d/t being able to still meet the same people and do her "job". I am going to have to read in the perspective that it's the same year just different realities. Thank you Alex.

I read a lovely article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek...

It makes it hard for me to talk about this book...without spoilers. :)

This is one big FAT book that I wasn't able to stop reading...it is/was so delicious and just darned good. I love that this book is really thick, but I got it from the beginning. I wasn't confused. I didn't wonder...I just went along for the ride that is Murakami. I wrote 5 blogpost about this darned book...yes, 5...I've lots to say...I'm just waiting for others to read the parts that have such deep meaning for me and looking at the comments and remembering. I'm thinking I may do what Michelle is doing and re-read the book by listening to it...

Kristi wrote: "It's Week 3!! What are you thoughts on this section?


And since it's Monday and I need a giggle...This week's Cat.
"

I love Grumpy Cat! The original Miserable... :P

I am personally wondering if the alienated girl Tengo was reminiscing about on the train is actually Aomame. When he described the girl's lips pressed in one tight line I immediately recalled the similar way he described Aomame's expression. Also, the NHK fee collector who stabbed a student must be Tengo's father. Am I crazy for thinking that?

Alex and Andrea, these are weird ideas, but I think in the Nurakami's universe many things are plausible and possible. And I really like guessing as a part of literary experience. When the plot unfolds, it is this game I cherish most of all.

I thought that about the NHK collector, too, at first, but if you catch the name she reads in the article, it doesn't match Tengo's surname. I think there was also some reference in the article about his age, and he'd have been too young to be Tengo's father.

I knew I should have noted the name better!

This has been my favorite section so far. I loved getting to learn some history for Aomame and Eri, it really helps me too understand them more as characters. I was beginning to think that Eri would turn out to be not human! But it seems she is just traumatized.

And i really got a kick out of imagining all the women at the self defense class kicking that dummy!