Monday, 12 September 2011
Haruki Murakami's cult trilogy 1Q84 poised to take the west by storm
It is a launch more reminiscent of a Harry Potter book than a lengthy, difficult novel by a Japanese author, but bookshops in the US are planning to stay open until midnight to cope with the demand for the translation of Haruki Murakami's 1,000-page trilogy, 1Q84.
There is a video trailer on YouTube and Spotify song lists of music associated with the jazz-loving author. Others have put up their own sections of translation on the internet for fans unwilling to wait the two years it has taken since the book was first published in Japan, selling an extraordinary 1m copies in two months.
Literary blogs have pored over revelations about plot and character and themes that Murakami has visited before – from love to messianic cults to cats and music, to his use of surreal devices. Murakami's English-language publishers, Knopf in the US and Harvill Secker in the UK, are anticipating an equally extraordinary level of interest when 1Q84 is published next month. The story follows the characters of Aomame, a hired killer, and Tengo, a novelist, whose lives increasingly overlap in a world that seems ever more unreal.
In the US, interest has been such that Knopf has already ordered a second print run. In the UK, Bethan Jones, of Harvill Secker, said inquiries from booksellers were running at 10-15 a day. "He is huge in Japan. Here he started out as an alternative, cult author. But this book looks as though it will be immense. It is really unusual for a book in translation, but we have produced a massive print run."
Following the runaway success of the book in Japan – its title is a play on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the English letter "Q" pronounced the same as the Japanese word for nine, kyu – his publishers took the unusual decision to ask two of his regular translators, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, to work simultaneously on the three books to speed up the production of an English version.
That in turn, as his British publisher Liz Foley explains, led to some contradictions in translation, which required arbitration by Murakami himself. "There is something really special about him," said Foley, mentioning how Murakami mixes up the everyday with the fantastical. "There is a cult element who are ardent about everything he writes, and that club is rapidly spreading."
Rubin also remarked on Murakami's ability to convey the commonplace in an extraordinary way. "What I love," he said, "is how he can describe eating yoghurt at midnight or the best way to cook a hamburger or someone pouring ketchup into a sock drawer. He is very down to earth, but also has passages that are very comically detailed.
"And it is not because he is writing about Japan that people love him. I'm not sure his readers are interested in Japan. It is about the moment to moment sensation of being in his world. Inside his head."
Rubin said the scale of 1Q84 was all the more extraordinary because when The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was first translated its publishers abridged it, uncertain that there was a market for a Japanese literary novel of that length. These days at least there appears to be no question that Murakami's English-language fans will read anything that the marathon-running author writes.
One unresolved question is whether he is even finished with 1Q84. When the first two volumes were published in Japan in 2009, readers had no idea that a third book was planned for publication.
Rubin said that Murakami had left room to continue with the story of Aomame and Tengo – even hinting that there may be more to come. Speaking to a Spanish newspaper earlier this year, Murakami said: "A fourth volume featuring an older Tengo may come out. Who knows?"
The first two books of 1Q84 are being published in a single volume on 18 October and the third on 25 October.
Pete Beaumont @'The Guardian'
Alan McGee: I Have no Issue With PIAS but I do Hate Sony
My crime? I laughed at Sony's Enfield warehouse burning down when people were rioting. I thought it was funny then and still do now. It was during the Q&A at the conference I said I thought it was funny - all I did was tell the truth. All that shit music burned into the ether - why wouldn't I laugh?
I actually walked away from music four years ago so I was unaware PIAS (an indie) had any offices or records stored there. I have no issue with PIAS but I do however hate Sony - it's personal. So there is no apology and there is no retraction. In a 30 minute speech in Brisbane, this was a ten second comment. The British PC media had a field day that evening on that 10 second statement and as I said, my name trended on Twitter from language to language worldwide which was interesting watching it.
I now realise you don't need a police force to police you when you have liberals doing the job for them. To be clear, I am talking about people who work at the Guardian and the BBC specifically.
The Australian media to be fair are cool. They got how ridiculous it was that the British PC media had blown it up out of nothing. Me personally? I liked it. All that Twitter attention has now doubled my price for speaking engagements, so my agent has informed me, so I thank the PC police for upping my future fees.
It also shows how the world is so small through technology. A story can be massive and yet still burn out by the time I am on another plane to Tokyo two days later. It seems it was Morrissey's turn last month to be demonised and mine this month - who will the PC police turn on next?
All I can say is my ''crime'' didn't include criticism of people's sexuality, race or religion. I just thought a load of shit music getting destroyed was doing the world a favour! So there is no apology and there is no retraction. In truth, Sony and PIAS will be insured for every single unit at cost and so will get their money back on a load of CDs which were never going to sell anyway! It is all wet liberal bullshit basically. Anyway that was Australia...
Here are some thoughts:
LIFE IS A GAME, SO PLAY IT!!!!
CASUAL CURSES ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE.
THE WORLD IS RANDOM AND CHAOS WHEN IT REIGNS IS A BEAUTIFUL THING.
EVERYTHING YOU EVER NEED TO KNOW IS ALREADY IN BOOKS. IF YOU'RE BRIGHT, FIND THEM.
@'HuffPo'
Listen: Alan McGee Responds To Sony Warehouse Fire Controversy
The Midflight Musings of a Music Svengali
Hmmm!
david leigh wrote:
Sep 10th 2011 8:13 GMT
Just to clear up a couple of factual points.
1. Yes, I understand the archive with z.gpg somewhere in it was posted by Assange or his friends in an obscure location around 7 December 2010, the day Assange was arrested for alleged sex offences. No-one told us this had been done. Assange apparently re-used the password he gave me earlier [although the file title - z.gpg - was different.]
2, Assange filmed the meeting on 4 August with Rusbridger. So the Guardian openly recorded it.
3. The relevance of that meeting is that Assange made no complaints to the Guardian whatever for publishing the password months previously. He was cordial and tried to conciliate us. Assange's present story that he had been angry for some time because of our 'security breach' is therefore a pretty obvious lie.
4. Obviously, I wish now I hadn't published the full password in the book. It would have been easy to alter, and that would have avoided all these false allegations. But I was too trusting of what Assange told me.
Via
1. Yes, I understand the archive with z.gpg somewhere in it was posted by Assange or his friends in an obscure location around 7 December 2010, the day Assange was arrested for alleged sex offences. No-one told us this had been done. Assange apparently re-used the password he gave me earlier [although the file title - z.gpg - was different.]
2, Assange filmed the meeting on 4 August with Rusbridger. So the Guardian openly recorded it.
3. The relevance of that meeting is that Assange made no complaints to the Guardian whatever for publishing the password months previously. He was cordial and tried to conciliate us. Assange's present story that he had been angry for some time because of our 'security breach' is therefore a pretty obvious lie.
4. Obviously, I wish now I hadn't published the full password in the book. It would have been easy to alter, and that would have avoided all these false allegations. But I was too trusting of what Assange told me.
Via
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