I’m starting to get a feel for why he’s such a big name. 
Chapter 2 definitely took more effort and brain power than chapter 1 for me as well. There really is a lot of detail, very specific detail. Aomame was also introduced with a lot of detail, but it was much less business specific terminology and more just really specific. 
Polls are broken, so I’m not sure if my changed vote came through all right, so this did not feel as satisfying as I hoped. I finally finished chapter 2.
I didn’t take any notes, because I just wanted to get through it. There was a thing in third to last page (page 66) that caught my eye:
天吾：
誰かがどこかでひとつでもしくじれば、全員の命取りになりかねない。
I’ll try to ask my teacher about it, but the longer I look at that かねない the less I I think I know what it means. Normally 連用形＋かねる means The first verb cannot be done. But now it feels to me like a double negative.
Probably it means: “Even if one of us slips up even a little bit, it can mean the end for all of us.”
かねない is a set grammar point, and it does mean what you think it does. Cannot be → can be. Or, could be, in more natural English for this sentence, I suppose.
Time to start chapter 3 then? I was planning to start tomorrow, so this is great timing. 
I have some time tomorrow, so I’ll start then, too! I need to sleep now, though. I was reading through my online Japanese class which goes to 10:30pm.
Ahem. Erm… Hi! 
Half a year later, with almost 10 additional WK levels under my belt, and equipped with the ebook (!), and with @Belerith having given me a good nudge, am once again returning to reading this book 
I just re-read chapter 2, and it was much smoother than the first time around. I’m looking forward to continuing it!
I can’t promise that I will manage to catch up to you Especially since I think I would like to read the 1Q84 books interleaved with other unrelated books. So I will take some breaks in between. Also, there are the Advanced Book Club picks which I’m reading/want to read, which also take up some time. So let’s see how it goes I will keep you posted in the threads at any rate!
Glad to see you join us once again! Would love to hear your thoughts as you go along, it sure wouldn’t hurt me to have reminders of previous events along the way 
.
Ooh nice~~ 
I’m happy you decided to pick it up again. Please do let us know your impressions as you read along. 
I feel the same actually. We had a month long break after the first one and that was nice, but right now I really don’t want to stop. It gets pretty exciting in book 1-2. We’ll see how everyone’s doing at the end of it I suppose…?
Thanks for the warm welcome back, @Saida and @Belerith! I’m usually very bad at writing down my impressions, but since you both asked for it so nicely, let’s see what I can do:
I was quite impressed by the writing style at the start of the chapter. It’s amazing how Murakami takes us along and slowly but steadily reveals more and more of the scenery.
I also liked the end and how Tengo tries to find reasons to reject the offer, when Komatsu simply smirks at him and says “You want to do it already, so…” I found that hilarious.
Interesting grammar and phrases:
熱弁をふるったところで - even if; no matter: 所で - Jisho.org #2 (just learned this while reading another book and now it is haunting me)
この世界で二十年飯を食ってきた - while we earn our bread, the Japanese eat their cooked rice
外に出てこないことには捕まえようがない - there is no way to, it is impossible to
もし芥川賞をとれたとして - if we assume that we won the prize
And the Most Beautiful Sentence Of The Chapter Award goes to:
小松は微笑んだ。普段は開けることのない抽斗の奥からひっぱり出してきたような微笑みだった。
Unfortunately, I am quite useless when it comes to speculating about what’s going to happen as I read the book already in German. Of course I don’t remember the small details, but I pretty much know the general plot, so no speculations for me any more…
Yes, I love how your love or admiration of/for the Japanese language and/or writing in general, shines through! I like reading, but I never think about writing in such detail. I usually just read and move on. Occasionally a particular turn of phrase will linger in my mind for a while, though.
Have you been following along with the individual threads or will you be catching up with those as you read?
Looking at your list of grammar points (and phrases) leaves me wondering whether I actually know those. I’m sure they all made sense in context! 
I also really admire that part of his writing. At times it feels like too many details (just stoop), but most of the time it just flows along really nicely. And I can always see it as that character’s reality at that time, which is just 
No, I did not really follow the threads, so I hope I will get something nice to read as I move along.
I’m pretty sure they did. At least it was not too hard to guess from the context. I just got curious regarding some of them (plus, the one with ようがない really got me confused because at first I thought it’s volitional, which didn’t make any sense at all 
)
Oh and I even forgot to mention an expression that I found quite funny: まっすぐな髪 (“hair that moves straight ahead” 
)
I agree, it really is beautiful, engaging writing. The real tell is that if I were to summarize to somewhat what’s happened up to this point, it would sound really boring. But somehow, because of they way its written, it’s not.
I really liked the thoughtful introspection about how 天吾 isn’t sure if it’s a real memory or not. Not a lot of people have the mindfulness to question their memories like that, and it really says a lot about him.