histoire de trottoir

destined meetings upon a sidewalk

memories of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84

The End of a Fairytale

The ending was serene, melodic, but perhaps a bit too calm for my tastes.  It felt mellow, but left a good after taste in the end.  But I can’t help but feel as if the entirety of the third book was too much.  That it could’ve stopped at book two, or midway through book three.  There were some things I wish I could’ve been kept in the dark about, some things I wish I could’ve read more about.

But it’s now 3:42AM, and all I want is sleep.

Full impressions and write up tomorrow morning, then.

No matter what happens, no matter what I have to do, I have to make it real, not make-believe.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 917

From here on out, I’m the one in charge. I’m the one who decides what’s good and what’s bad—and which way we’re headed. And people had better remember that.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 884

The moons were listening carefully. So were the Little People. And this very room she was in. She couldn’t let it out of her heart, not one centimeter. She had to surround her heart with a thick wall so nothing could escape.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 882

The moonlight wreaked havoc on her mind. It changed the tides in inlets, stirred up life in the woods.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 854

Eighty pages left.  But I don’t want it to finish.

As a single leaf on a tree, he turned off the light of consciousness, closed the door on any senses, and waited for the change of seasons.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 829

My mind is like a brand-new steel nail—hard, sober straight. Hammered at just the right angle, into the core of reality. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m completely sane.
It’s the world around me that’s gone crazy.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 813

But this isn’t their God, she decided. It’s my God. This is a God I have found through sacrificing my own life, through my flesh being cut, my skin ripped off, my blood sucked away, my nails torn, all my time and hopes and memories being stolen from me. This is not a God with a form. No white clothes, no long beard. This God has no doctrine, no scripture, no precepts. No reward, no punishment. This God doesn’t give, and doesn’t take away. There is no heaven up in the sky, no hell down below. When it’s hot, and when it’s cold, God is simply there.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 743

Unless you die once, you won’t be reborn. But people face death while they’re still alive.

—1Q84, Haruki Murakami, pg 692