By Josh Powell

During a recent talk in Seattle, Jay Rubin read several seemingly unrelated snippets from his translation of 1Q84, the newest novel from Haruki Murakami. Each passage was just a few sentences in length and removed from any context. The question he posed to the audience was, “What did each of these chosen excerpts have in common?” The answer, as it turned out, was that they all mentioned a sink — a kitchen sink to be exact. Rubin’s pop quiz was meant as a tongue-in-cheek response to a New York Times review, which claimed that Murakami packed into 1Q84 just about everything “but the kitchen sink and a coherent story.” While it was clear Rubin didn’t hold the review in a particularly favorable light, he did acknowledge that Murakami’s newest book was intended as an exercise in packing as much into a novel as possible (and that perhaps it could have been shorter). He also shared his revelation that Murakami’s 1981 short story “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning” was the seed from which the 900-page 1Q84 grew. They share this basic premise: two people in love separate, lose memory of each other and then struggle to reunite. 
So what does Murakami grow from that seed in 1Q84? Quite a lot as it turns out. And what does it all mean? Well, it’s hard to say. By this point, all of the surreal and absurd aspects of the story — and there are quite a few — have been well documented. The consensus, however, is that, as many fans of Murakami already know, regardless of any sort of resolution (which may in fact never come) it’s the long, strange journey that’s most enjoyable. There’s an oddly addictive quality to Murakami’s hyperaware, detailed descriptions, of which there is no dearth in 1Q84 — Murakami’s ultimate attempt at what he calls a “comprehensive novel.” Complementing that excess of, oftentimes, mundane detail, is that imaginative and surreal alternate reality that Murakami fans are so used to. In this case: religious cults, mysterious Little People emerging from the mouth of a dead goat, monsters, sex, violence and two moons. It’s debatable whether anything particularly new is brought to the table in terms of Murakami’s oeuvre, but there is certainly a whole lot more (the third volume of 1Q84 was an unplanned addition, written after the first two were already published in Japan). While perhaps daunting for the uninitiated, for those fans familiar with Murakami’s style, there’s never too much of a good thing — whether it all makes sense in the end or not.