Book One Chapter 5: 青豆：専門的な技能と訓練が必要とされる職業 Haruki Murakami's 1Q84

Saida · September 29, 2020, 8:47pm

Thread for chapter 5: Better get it out right away! I need some help with the ‘Journey so far’ part, though: I’m not sure where Aomame’s story leaves off in chapter 3, though the title gives some hint as to what has or hasn’t happened up to this point…

Chapter 6 thread scheduled for October 10th!

Now on to the usual business:

Main thread: Hashing out the details for reading Murakami Haruki’s 1Q84 (Intermediate/Advanced Book)

Threads list

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).

第５章：青豆：専門的な技能と訓練が必要とされる職業
Title translation: A job which requires special skills and training.

Our character's journey so far. 青豆

Can’t stop thinking about her first sexual experience as she ascends the emergency ladder into a fenced off area. Makes her way to her important appointment, turns out to be a highly skilled assassin, who leaves no trace of foul play. Special skills, indeed.

Now, poll time:

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

0 voters

Belerith · September 29, 2020, 10:00pm

Are we on a 1 chapter a week schedule after all? Asking for a friend.

Saida · September 30, 2020, 5:21am

No I’m just scatterbrained.

Belerith · October 26, 2020, 12:35pm

Well, well. I hadn’t expected quite this. That poor man, flustered by Aomame’s quirkiness.

This chapter was quite interesting as far as fleshing out Aomame’s character more. I’m not sure what I think of her right now. She sure seems to have a lot to prove though.

NicoleRauch · March 26, 2021, 7:52am

Finished this chapter yesterday! Here’s some thoughts on it.

Thoughts and stuff

That was a fun chapter, I laughed out loud a couple of times. I found it interesting to watch her hit on that guy. I was surprised to see that her pushiness turned out to be successful in the end. I would have expected him to bail out at some point, but I guess nature’s call is just very strong. Also, I liked this way of reflecting on the “given standards” by inverting them.
Also, I like how he continues to slowly weave this theme of “something’s odd here” into the whole scene without making it too dominant. Guess we’re up to something here

Funny sentences
I generally like how he plays with words and adds colour and vividness to the scenes. Some examples:

When Aomame gets bored to death by the guy’s talk: あんたの仕事がどうかなんて、こっちには鳩のクソほどの興味もないの。。。

And when he reflects on her hints at her job: あんたは歩く広辞苑か、と青豆は思った。

But what amused me the most was his description of the cheap business hotels: 駅に近く、ベッドが部屋のほとんどのスペースを占め、窓からは隣りのビルの壁しか見えず、肘を二十回くらい壁にぶつけないことにはシャワーも浴びられないようなところだ。He really knows what he’s talking about It resurrected quite some memories…

Wording
This week I was seriously annoyed about the abundance of katakana words. That reminded me of something a friend was told in their university class on Japanese literature: Murakami writes his books in a way that makes them especially easy to translate, to the point of him using slightly unnatural Japanese. Which seems to be a big part of his international success. I was actually wondering whether this katakana hype might also tie into this, because the “real” Japanese words somehow have more nuanced meanings so it might be harder to understand what exactly he is aiming at, and harder to carry over to a different language?

Belerith · March 26, 2021, 5:27pm

Oh yeah, that he does.

Thanks for continuing to share these - they’re always super nice to read and remember back to those chapters and what my impression was like back then, and also what catches your attention.

I never knew that he was ‘easy to translate’, but I can see how the clarity of his words might have that effect! I only read that he was kind of picky about who translates his work somewhere.

Saida · March 26, 2021, 8:05pm

I think I read that when he started writing, he would actually first write in English, and then translate himself back to Japanese, just so he would end up with less flowery sentences.