Book One Chapter 16: 天吾：気に入ってもらえてとても嬉しい Haruki Murakami's 1Q84

Saida · February 28, 2021, 8:55pm

Hello people! A short wait for this thread, but here it is.

First things first:
Refer to Hashing out the details for reading Murakami Haruki’s 1Q84 (Intermediate/Advanced Book) for links to the threads of the 前編 for book 1.

Thread schedule

Warnings (read please!)

This story contains themes of an adult and/or sensitive nature, including cults, sex, murder, and sexual abuse of children, both mentioned, and graphic (though not until Book 2, in the latter case).

Our character's journey so far.

Tengo has received permission to rewrite the book a couple chapters back, and last chapter we learned more about the relationship with his father. He left home sometime durng high school, because he was being terribly oppressed by having to join his dad on work trips on every Sunday.

第１６章：天吾：気に入ってもらえてとても嬉しい
Let’s start off with a rough translation of the title:

Chapter 16: Tengo: Super glad you liked it

Now, poll time:

I’m reading along
I’m still reading book, but I haven’t reached this part yet
I’ve finished this part
I’m no longer reading the book

0 voters

Belerith · March 5, 2021, 6:57pm

Annnnd I am caught up! Woo~ Just in time for next week’s thread.

I always find it really interesting when German somewhat randomly features in Japanese media. I knew 村上 likes Germany, or that it features in some of his books, but it still surprised me.

Since you mentioned this last thread - I wasn’t really expecting that to be mirrored like you were, but there was a mention of the double moon on 天吾’s side of things. On page 50 小松 has exactly one thing he finds lacking in his reworked 空気さなぎ - the scene with the two moons isn’t painted clearly enough.
And to think that scene in chapter 15 left such an impression on you! It seems somewhat ironic, and very surely intended, what with it being so close together. This really makes me wonder how ふかえり’s story might be connected to everything.

Hijiki · March 6, 2021, 10:25am

The last few chapters contain a lot of aspects that seem to exist in both stories, compared the first half of book 1, so I got over the frustration of not being able to find clues about how they are connected. At this point we know for sure they are connected, maybe even overlapping. Conversely, proving that the stories don’t take place in the same world seems to become more difficult the more details we get.

I remembered the part where 小松 mentioned that issue, but I didn’t expect the two moons to be one of the things connecting the stories. Maybe that’s why something I was supposed to know surprised me so much (or maybe I am biased because I sometimes see double suns in my dreams and I remembered that ominous feeling). In any case, judging by the impact it had on me, I suppose the way 村上 depicted the scene is more than sufficient to satisfy 小松’s standards.

Overthinking connections

Writing about this made me come up with another theory: at the moment we have 2 stories connected by a few facts, but one of them contains a third story, the 空気さなぎ. And this in turn is connected to 天吾’s world because ふかえり seems to say that the リトルピープル are real, but also to 青豆’s world, that hosted a phenomenon which apparently happened in the 空気さなぎ story as well. Which might mean that we are in fact facing 3 interconnected worlds, paradoxically the third being already a book in itself and therefore not getting its own chapters like the other two (possibly a sign of 村上 respecting the copyrights of a fellow author?), or perhaps because that story had already concluded by the time the other two started it had to be sealed off in some way or another. However, this third story is now being rewritten by 天吾 and through that it seems to revive and infiltrate 青豆’s world, and the altered reality in which she finds herself now might be a rewritten version of the world which she and 天吾 shared at some point.

Belerith · March 6, 2021, 10:54am

I got goosebumps reading your theory.

It doesn't seem too unlikely

This part right here. If this is it, and this rewriting is invoking something, we’re in for a wild ride. I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen now.