The Thousands

For the last few weeks I’ve been nobody’s friend. Dates, phone calls, emergencies and duties have all been met with the begrudging half-interest of an underachieving teenager. I left the iron on all day THREE TIMES and I can’t state with any certainty that my cat is still alive.

This is 100% Murakami’s fault; he and his incredibly long, incredibly good novel, 1Q84. It’s possible that he uses the term ‘ripe breasts’ a little too liberally for anyone’s liking, and it’s also possible that his editors were too intimidated by his fame to cut the prose where they should have, but who cares when he can invoke a world that’s so absorbing and bonkers at the same time?

It’s a tale of love that has elements of both magic realism and hard-boiled crime. The story involves a literary heist, a cult, sexual abuse, revenge, levitating clocks, exploding dogs, and a group called the “Little People” who emerge through the mouth of a dead goat. It also has all the Murakami tropes his fans know and love – parallel narratives, music references, intricately detailed descriptions of food preparation, and the notion that love is a matter of fate.

Some unkind critics have dubbed it a ‘shaggy dog story‘ as it’s a substantial read without a strong ‘point’ or neat ending, but there’s a whole lot of satisfaction to be found just by getting lost in this dreamy book’s push and pull. Murakami himself has said, “When you read a good story, you just keep reading” and as my poor, half-starved cat can attest, if you pick this book up, that’s exactly what you’ll do.