1q84

Haruki Murakami (2009)

• Book 1: April-June
  • Chapter 1 - Aomame - Don't Let Appearances Fool You
    • Aomame loved history as much as she loved sports. She rarely read fiction, but history books could keep her occupied for hours. What she liked about history was the way all its facts were linked with particular dates and places. She did not find it especially difficult to remember historical dates. Even if she did not learn them by rote memorization, once she grasped the relationship of an event to its time and to the events preceding and following it, the date would come to her automatically. In both middle school and high school, she had always gotten the top grade on history exams. It puzzled her to hear someone say he had trouble learning dates. How could something so simple be a problem for anyone?
    • Some people would get the name of the plant wrong and call her “Edamame” or “Soramame,” whereupon she would gently correct them: “No, I’m not soybeans or fava beans, just green peas. Pretty close, though. Aomame.”
  • Chapter 2 - Tengo - Something Else in Mind
    • she's confusing 'chrysalis' and 'cocoon'
    • You at least are willing to work hard,” Komatsu said cautiously. “As far as I can tell, you don’t cut corners. You’re very modest when it comes to the act of writing. And why? Because you like to write. I value that in you. It’s the single most important quality for somebody who wants to be a writer.”
    • His biases played a large role here, but for Komatsu bias was an important element of truth.
    • “So I’d like you to let me read your next story before you show it to anyone else.” Tengo promised to do that.
    • “Your case might take some time,” he said. “But we’re in no hurry. Just make up your mind to write every single day. And don’t throw anything out. It might come in handy later.” Tengo agreed to follow Komatsu’s advice.
    • When he was home, Tengo usually wrote from first thing in the morning until the approach of evening. All he needed to satisfy him was his Mont Blanc pen, his blue ink, and standard manuscript sheets, each page lined with four hundred empty squares ready to accept four hundred characters. Once a week his married girlfriend would come to spend the afternoon with him. Sex with a married woman ten years his senior was stress free and fulfilling, because it couldn’t lead to anything. As the sun was setting, he would head out for a long walk, and once the sun was down he would read a book while listening to music. He never watched television. Whenever the NHK fee collector came, he would point out that he had no television set, and politely refuse to pay. “I really don’t have one. You can come in and look if you want,” he would say, but the collector would never come in. They were not allowed to.
  • Chapter 3 - Aomame - Some Changed Facts
    • Then she closed her eyes and recited the usual prayer, the words of which meant nothing. The meaning didn’t matter. Reciting was the important thing.
  • Chapter 4 - Tengo - If That Is What You Want To Do
    • THE PHONE WOKE Tengo. The luminous hands of his clock pointed to a little after one a.m. The room was dark, of course. Tengo knew the call was from Komatsu. No one but Komatsu would call him at one in the morning – and keep the phone ringing until he picked it up, however long it took. Komatsu had no sense of time. He would place a call the moment a thought struck him, never considering the hour. It could be the middle of the night or the crack of dawn. The other person could be enjoying his wedding night or lying on his deathbed. The prosaic thought never seemed to enter Komatsu’s egg-shaped head that a call from him might be disturbing. Which is not to say that he did this with everyone. Even Komatsu worked for an organization and collected a salary. He couldn’t possibly go around behaving toward everyone with a total disregard for common sense. Only with Tengo could he get away with it. Tengo was, for Komatsu, little more than an extension of Komatsu himself, another arm or leg. If Komatsu was up, Tengo must be up. Tengo normally went to bed at ten o’clock and woke at six, maintaining a generally regular lifestyle. He was a deep sleeper. Once something woke him, though, it was hard for him to get to sleep again. He was high-strung to that extent. He had tried to explain this to Komatsu any number of times, and pleaded with him not to call in the middle of the night, like a farmer begging God not to send swarms of locusts into his fields before harvest time. “Got it,” Komatsu declared. “No more nighttime calls.” But his promise had not sunk deep roots in his brain. One rainfall was all it took to wash them out.
    • As with many beautiful teenage girls, her expression lacked any trace of everyday life.
    • “The calculus part was good.” “You mean in my lecture?” Fuka-Eri nodded. “Do you like math?” She gave her head a quick shake. She did not like math. “But the part about calculus was good?” he asked. Fuka-Eri gave another little shrug. “You talked about it like you cared.” “Oh, really?” Tengo said. No one had ever told him this before. “Like you were talking about somebody important to you,” she said.
    • Tengo converted her question into longer sentences: “In other words, if I like math so much, why do I go to all the trouble of writing fiction? Why not just keep doing math? Is that it?” She nodded. “Hmm. Real life is different from math. Things in life don’t necessarily flow over the shortest possible route. For me, math is – how should I put it? – math is all too natural. It’s like beautiful scenery. It’s just there. There’s no need to exchange it with anything else. That’s why, when I’m doing math, I sometimes feel I’m turning transparent. And that can be scary.” Fuka-Eri kept looking straight into Tengo’s eyes as if she were looking into an empty house with her face pressed up against the glass. Tengo said, “When I’m writing a story, I use words to transform the surrounding scene into something more natural for me. In other words, I reconstruct it. That way, I can confirm without a doubt that this person known as ‘me’ exists in the world. This is a totally different process from steeping myself in the world of math.” “You confirm that you exist,” Fuka-Eri said. “I can’t say I’ve been one hundred percent successful at it,” Tengo said.
  • Chapter 5 - Aomame - A Profession Requiring Specialized Techniques And Training
    • “You’ve been living more than fifty years with a normal brain, you have a decent job, you even own your own sailboat, and still you can’t tell whether your cock is bigger or smaller than normal?”
  • Chapter 6 - Tengo - Does This Mean We're Going Pretty Far From The City
    • Wouldn't that be tantamount to giving a butterfly a skeleton?
    • The artlessness made some passages dense and difficult but it gave others a startling freshness. He needed only to throw out and replace the first type, and leave the second in place.
    • Unfortunately, though, body language generally fails to have its indended effect on the phone.
  • Chapter 7 - Aomame - Quietly, So As Not To Wake The Butterfly
  • Chapter 8 - Tengo - Meeting New People In New Places
  • Chapter 9 - Aomame - New Scenery, New Rules
  • Chapter 10 - Tengo - A Real Revolution With Real Bloodshed
    • So a person who no longer truly believed in the revolution continued to preach revolutionary theory.
  • Chapter 11 - Aomame - The Human Body Is A Temple
    • “As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you. There is no need to hurry, but you will be better off, at some point in time, if you bring it outside yourself. I am nothing if not discreet, and I have several realistic measures at my disposal. If all goes well, I could be of help to you.” Later, when Aomame finally opened up to the dowager, she would also open a new door in her life.
  • Chapter 12 - Tengo - Thy Kingdom Come
  • Chapter 13 - Aomame - A Born Victim
  • Chapter 14 - Tengo - Things That Most Readers Have Never Seen Before
    • “Well, take these words, for example,” Komatsu said. “‘Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.’” “What is that?” “Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Have you ever read Aristotle?” “Almost nothing.” “You ought to. I’m sure you’d like it. Whenever I run out of things to read, I read Greek philosophy. I never get tired of the stuff. There’s always something new to learn.” “So what’s the point of the quotation?” “The conclusion of things is the good. The good is, in other words, the conclusion at which all things arrive. Let’s leave doubt for tomorrow,” Komatsu said. “That is the point.” “What does Aristotle have to say about the Holocaust?” Komatsu’s crescent-moon smile further deepened. “Here, Aristotle is mainly talking about things like art and scholarship and crafts.”
    • The role of a story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a single problem into another form. Depending on the nature and direction of the problem, a solution could be suggested in the narrative. Tengo would return to the real world with that suggestion in hand. It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. At times it lacked coherence and served no immediate practical purpose. But it would contain a possibility. Someday he might be able to decipher the spell. That possibility would gently warm his heart from within.
  • Chapter 15 - Aomame - Firmly, Like Attaching An Anchor To A Balloon
  • Chapter 16 - Tengo - I'm Glad You Liked It
  • Chapter 17 - Aomame - Whether We Are Happy Or Unhappy?
    • You may not be counting the days, but I am. Do you know why?” Again the girl gave a slight shake of the head. “Because time can be very important,” the dowager said. “Just counting it can have great significance.”
  • Chapter 18 - Tengo - No Longer Any Place For A Big Brother
  • Chapter 19 - Aomame - Women Sharing A Secret
  • Chapter 20 - Tengo - The Poor Gilyaks
  • Chapter 21 - Aomame - No Matter How Far Away I Try to Go
  • Chapter 22 - Tengo - That Time Could Take On Deformed Shapes As It Moved Ahead
    • TENGO THOUGHT ABOUT his brain. Lots of things made him do this. The size of the human brain had increased four times over the past two and a half million years. In terms of weight, the brain occupied only two percent of the human body, but it consumed some forty percent of the body’s total energy (according to a book he had recently read). Owing to the dramatic expansion of the brain, human beings had been able to acquire the concepts of time, space, and possibility. The concepts of time, space, and possibility. Tengo knew that time could become deformed as it moved forward. Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. One period of time might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short. Occasionally the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst cases order itself could vanish entirely. Sometimes things that should not be there at all might be added onto time. By adjusting time this way to suit their own purposes, people probably adjusted the meaning of their existences. In other words, by adding such operations to time, they were able – but just barely – to preserve their own sanity. Surely, if a person had to accept the time through which he had just passed uniformly in the given order, his nerves could not bear the strain. Such a life, Tengo felt, would be sheer torture. Through the expansion of the brain, people had acquired the concept of temporality, but they simultaneously learned ways in which to change and adjust time. In parallel with their ceaseless consumption of time, people would ceaselessly reproduce time that they had mentally adjusted. This was no ordinary feat. No wonder the brain was said to consume forty percent of the body’s total energy!
  • Chapter 23 - Aomame - This Is Just The Beginning Of Something
    • “You got me interested, so I did a little searching on my own. And the more I looked, the fishier it began to smell. Sakigake calls itself a religion, and it even has official certification, but it’s totally lacking any religious substance. Doctrine-wise, it’s kind of deconstructionist or something, just a jumble of images of religion thrown together. They’ve added some new-age spiritualism, fashionable academicism, a return to nature, anticapitalism, occultism, and stuff, but that’s all: it has a bunch of flavors, but no substantial core. Or maybe that’s what it’s all about: this religion’s substance is its lack of substance. In McLuhanesque terms, the medium is the message. Some people might find that cool.” “McLuhanesque?” “Hey, look, even I read a book now and then,” Ayumi protested. “McLuhan was ahead of his time. He was so popular for a while that people tend not to take him seriously, but what he had to say was right.” “In other words, the package itself is the contents. Is that it?” “Exactly. The characteristics of the package determine the nature of the contents, not the other way around.”
  • Chapter 24 - Tengo - What's The Point Of Its Being A World That Isn't Here?
• Book 2: July-September
  • Chapter 1 - Aomame - It Was The Most Boring Town In The World
    • “According to Chekhov,” Tamaru said, rising from his chair, “once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired.” “Meaning what?” Tamaru stood facing Aomame directly. He was only an inch or two taller than she was. “Meaning, don’t bring unnecessary props into a story. If a pistol appears, it has to be fired at some point. Chekhov liked to write stories that did away with all useless ornamentation.” Aomame straightened the sleeves of her dress and slung her bag over her shoulder. “And that worries you – if a pistol comes on the scene, it’s sure to be fired at some point.” “In Chekhov’s view, yes.” “So you’re thinking you’d rather not hand me a pistol.” “They’re dangerous. And illegal. And Chekhov is a writer you can trust.” “But this is not a story. We’re talking about the real world.” Tamaru narrowed his eyes and looked hard at Aomame. Then, slowly opening his mouth, he said, “Who knows?”
  • Chapter 2 - Tengo - I Don't Have A Thing Except My Soul
    • It was not just that he had terrible style: he also gave the impression that he was deliberately desecrating the very idea of wearing clothes.
  • Chapter 3 - Aomame - You Can't Choose How You're Born, But You Can Choose How You Die
  • Chapter 4 - Tengo - It Might Be Better Not To Wish For Such A Thing
  • Chapter 5 - Aomame - The Vegetarian Cat Meets Up With The Rat
    • Tamaru cleared his throat. “By the way, do you know the story about the vegetarian cat who met up with the rat?” “Never heard that one.” “Would you like to?” “Very much.” “A cat met up with a big male rat in the attic and chased him into a corner. The rat, trembling, said, ‘Please don’t eat me, Mr. Cat. I have to go back to my family. I have hungry children waiting for me. Please let me go.’ The cat said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t eat you. To tell you the truth, I can’t say this too loudly, but I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat any meat. You were lucky to run into me.’ The rat said, ‘Oh, what a wonderful day! What a lucky rat I am to meet up with a vegetarian cat!’ But the very next second, the cat pounced on the rat, held him down with his claws, and sank his sharp teeth into the rat’s throat. With his last, painful breath, the rat asked him, ‘But Mr. Cat, didn’t you say you’re a vegetarian and don’t eat any meat? Were you lying to me?’ The cat licked his chops and said, ‘True, I don’t eat meat. That was no lie. I’m going to take you home in my mouth and trade you for lettuce.’” Aomame thought about this for a moment. “What’s the point?” “No point, really. I suddenly remembered the story when we were talking about luck before. That’s all. You can take whatever you like from it, of course.” “What a heartwarming story.”
  • Chapter 6 - Tengo - We Have Very Long Arms
  • Chapter 7 - Aomame - Where You Are About To Set Foot
  • Chapter 8 - Tengo - Time For The Cats To Come
    • This is a kind of mantra for him, thought Tengo. He has protected himself all these years by reciting such phrases.
  • Chapter 9 - Aomame - What Comes As A Payment For Heavenly Grace
  • Chapter 10 - Tengo - You Have Declined Our Offer
    • Tengo found himself silently wishing that this peaceful time could go on forever. If he said it aloud, some keen-eared demon somewhere might overhear him. And so he kept his wish for continued tranquility to himself. But things never go the way you want them to, and this was no exception. The world seemed to have a better sense of how you wanted things not to go.
    • "Angry hornets would be too much for me, but I'm sure I can manage to look after you."
    • “We have to join forces,” she had said. Those long arms were reaching out from somewhere. We have to join forces. Because we’ll be the world’s strongest male/female duo. The Beat Goes On.
  • Chapter 11 - Aomame - Balance Itself Is The Good
    • The man took another deep breath. “All right, I see what you are saying. How about this, then? Let’s make a deal. If you will take my life, I will spare the life of Tengo Kawana. I still have that much power left.” “Tengo,” Aomame said. The strength went out of her body. “So you know about that, too.” “I know everything about you. Or perhaps I should say almost everything.” “But you can’t possibly tell that much. Tengo’s name has never taken a step outside my heart.” “Please, Miss Aomame,” the man said. Then he released a brief sigh. “There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person’s heart. And it just so happens – should I say? – that Tengo Kawana has become a figure of no little significance to us at the moment.” Aomame was at a loss for words. The man said, “But then again, chance has nothing to do with it. Your two fates did not cross through mere happenstance. The two of you set foot in this world because you were meant to enter it. And now that you have entered it, like it or not, each of you will be assigned your proper role here.” “Set foot in this world?” “Yes, in this year of 1Q84.” “1Q84?” Aomame said, her face greatly distorting. I made that word up! “True, it is a word you made up,” the man said, as if reading her mind. “I am just borrowing it from you.” Aomame formed the word 1Q84 in her mouth. “There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person’s heart,” Leader repeated softly.
  • Chapter 12 - Tengo - More Than I Could Count On My Fingers
    • The slim, well-shaped neck below the ears had a lustrous glow, like vegetables raised in abundant sunshine, immaculate and well suited to morning dew and ladybugs. This was the first time he had seen her with her hair up, and it was a miraculously intimate and beautiful sight.
    • A wall bore the police slogan “Driving Drunk: A One-Way Street to a Ruined Life.” (Did the police have slogan-writing specialists in their ranks?)
    • A nasty-looking old man was walking a stupid-looking mutt. A stupid-looking woman drove by in an ugly subcompact. Nasty-looking wires stretched from one ugly utility pole to another. The scene outside the window suggested that the world had settled in a place somewhere midway between “being miserable” and “lacking in joy,” and consisted of an infinite agglomeration of variously shaped microcosms.
    • On the other hand, there also existed in the world such unexceptionably beautiful views as Fuka-Eri’s ears and neck. In which should he place the greater faith? It was not easy for him to decide. Like a big, confused dog, Tengo made a soft growling noise in his throat, closed the curtains, and returned to his own little world.
  • Chapter 13 - Aomame - Without Your Love
    • Remember how the old song goes, ‘Without your love, it’s a honky-tonk parade’?” He hummed the melody. “Do you know it?” “‘It’s Only a Paper Moon.’” “That’s it. 1984 and 1Q84 are fundamentally the same in terms of how they work. If you don’t believe in the world, and if there is no love in it, then everything is phony. No matter which world we are talking about, no matter what kind of world we are talking about, the line separating fact from hypothesis is practically invisible to the eye. It can only be seen with the inner eye, the eye of the mind.”
    • ‘It is as evil as we are positive … the more desperately we try to be good and wonderful and perfect, the more the Shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive. … The fact is that if one tries beyond one’s capacity to be perfect, the Shadow descends to hell and becomes the devil. For it is just as sinful from the standpoint of nature and of truth to be above oneself as to be below oneself.’
    • “Why are you unable to explain it?” “It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”
    • You are afraid, just as the people of the Vatican were afraid to accept the Copernican theory. Not even they believed in the infallibility of the Ptolemaic theory. They were afraid of the new situation that would prevail if they accepted the Copernican theory. They were afraid of having to reorder their minds to accept it. Strictly speaking, the Catholic Church has still not publicly accepted the Copernican theory. You are like them. You are afraid of having to shed the armor with which you have long defended yourself.”
    • Aomame closed her eyes. I will not cry, she thought. It is not the time to cry yet. “Is Tengo really longing for me? Can you swear to that without deception?” “To this day, Tengo has never loved anyone but you with his whole heart. It is a fact. There is not the slightest room for doubt.” “But still, he never looked for me.” “Well, you never looked for him. Isn’t that true?” Aomame closed her eyes and, in a split second, reviewed the long span of years as if standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, surveying an ocean channel far below. She could smell the sea. She could hear the deep sighing of the wind. She said, “We should have had the courage to search for each other long ago, I suppose. Then we could have been united in the original world.” “Theoretically, perhaps,” the man said. “But you would never have even thought such a thing in the world of 1984. Cause and effect are linked that way in a twisted form. You can pile up all the worlds you like and the twisting will never be undone.” Tears poured from Aomame’s eyes. She cried for everything she had lost. She cried for everything she was about to lose. And eventually – how long had she been crying? – she arrived at a point where she could cry no longer. Her tears dried up, as if her emotions had run into an invisible wall.
  • Chapter 14 - Tengo - A Package In His Hands
    • To Tengo, sexual desire was fundamentally an extension of a means of communication. And so, to look for sexual desire in a place where there was no possibility of communication seemed inappropriate to him.
    • the nipples turned beautifully upward, like a vine's new tendrils seeking sunlight
    • Tengo’s own tongue responded unconsciously to this movement and soon their tongues were like two young snakes in a spring meadow, newly wakened from their hibernation and hungrily intertwining, each led on by the other’s scent.
    • Aomame, Tengo thought. I have to see Aomame, Tengo thought. I have to find her. Why has it taken me so long to realize something so obvious? She handed me that precious package. Why did I toss it aside and leave it unopened all this time? He thought of shaking his head, but that was something he could not yet do. His body had still not recovered from its paralysis.
  • Chapter 15 - Aomame - Time Now For Ghosts
    • But I love Tengo. Aomame murmured the words aloud. “I love Tengo.” This is no honky-tonk parade. 1Q84 is the real world, where a cut draws real blood, where pain is real pain, and fear is real fear. The moon in the sky is no paper moon. It – or they – are real moons. And in this world, I have willingly accepted death for Tengo’s sake. I won’t let anyone call this fake. Aomame looked at the round clock on the wall. A simple design, by Braun. Well matched to the Heckler & Koch. The clock was the only thing hanging on the walls of this apartment. The clock hands had passed ten. Just about time for the two men to find Leader’s corpse. In the bedroom of an elegant suite at the Hotel Okura, a man had breathed his last. A big man. A man who was far from ordinary. He had moved on to another world. No one could do anything to bring him back. Time now for ghosts.
  • Chapter 16 - Tengo - Like A Ghost Ship
    • “You want to see this person,” Fuka-Eri asked without a question mark. “Yes, she is very important to me.” “Have you been looking for her for twenty years,” Fuka-Eri asked. “No, I haven’t,” Tengo said. While searching for the proper words to continue, Tengo folded his hands on the table. “To tell you the truth, I just started looking for her today.” “Today,” she said. “If she’s so important to you, why have you never looked for her until today?” Tengo asked for Fuka-Eri. “Good question.” Fuka-Eri looked at him in silence. Tengo put his thoughts into some kind of order. Then he said, “I’ve probably been taking a long detour. This girl named Aomame has been – how should I put this? – at the center of my consciousness all this time without a break. She has functioned as an important anchor to my very existence. In spite of that fact – is it? – I guess I haven’t been able to fully grasp her significance to me precisely because she has been all too close to the center.” Fuka-Eri stared at Tengo. It was impossible to tell from her expression whether this young girl had the slightest comprehension of what he was saying. But that hardly mattered. Tengo was half talking to himself. “But it has finally hit me: she is neither a concept nor a symbol nor a metaphor. She actually exists: she has warm flesh and a spirit that moves. I never should have lost sight of that warmth and that movement. It took me twenty years to understand something so obvious. It always takes me a while to think of things, but this is a little too much. It may already be too late. But one way or another, I want to find her.” With her knees on the floor, Fuka-Eri straightened up, the shape of her nipples showing through the Jeff Beck T-shirt. “Ah-oh-mah-meh,” Fuka-Eri said slowly, as if pondering each syllable. “Yes. Green Peas. It’s an unusual name.” “You want to meet her,” Fuka-Eri asked without a question mark. “Yes, of course I want to meet her,” Tengo said. Fuka-Eri chewed her lower lip as she took a moment to think about something. Then she looked up as if she had hit upon a new idea and said, “She might be very close by.”
  • Chapter 17 - Aomame - Pull The Rat Out
  • Chapter 18 - Tengo - That Lonely - Taciturn Satellite
    • The moon was as taciturn as ever. But it was no longer alone.
  • Chapter 19 - Aomame - When The Dohta Wakes Up
    • Aomame looked at her surroundings. In other words, I am in the story that Tengo set in motion. In a sense, I am inside him – inside his body, she realized. I am inside that shrine, so to speak. I saw an old science fiction movie on television long ago. It was the story of a small group of scientists who shrank their bodies down to microscopic size, boarded a submarine-like vehicle (which had also been shrunk down), and entered their patient’s blood vessels, through which they gained entry to his brain in order to perform a complex operation that would have been impossible under ordinary circumstances. Maybe my situation is like that. I’m in Tengo’s blood and circulating through his body. I battled the white blood cells that attacked the invading foreign body (me) as I headed for the root cause of the disease, and I must have succeeded in “deleting” that cause when I killed Leader at the Hotel Okura.
  • Chapter 20 - Tengo - The Walrus And The Mad Hatter
  • Chapter 21 - Aomame - What Should I Do?
  • Chapter 22 - As Long As There Are Two Moons In The Sky
    • If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.
  • Chapter 23 - Aomame - Put A Tiger In Your Tank
  • Chapter 24 - Tengo - As Long As This Warmth Remains
• Book 3: October-December
  • Chapter 1 - Ushikawa - Something Kicking At The Far Edges Of Consciousness
  • Chapter 2 - Aomame - Alone, But Not Lonely
    • "Stalinist Zen," Aomame said.
  • Chapter 3 - Tengo - The Animals All Wore Clothes
  • Chapter 4 - Ushikawa - Occam's Razor
  • Chapter 5 - Aomame - No Matter How Long You Keep Quiet
  • Chapter 6 - Tengo - By The Pricking Of My Thumbs
  • Chapter 7 - Ushikawa - I'm Heading Your Way
  • Chapter 8 - Aomame - Not Such A Bad Door
  • Chapter 9 - Tengo - Before The Exit Is Blocked
    • “Tengo, Tengo, Tengo,” she sang out. “Such a nice name. Tengo. It’s so easy to say.”
    • “Kumi Adachi,” Tengo said aloud. “Not bad. Compact and simple.” “Thank you,” Kumi Adachi said. “But putting it like that makes me feel like a Honda Civic or something.” “I meant it as a compliment.”
    • Why couldn’t I remember this smell until now? It’s so simple. It’s such a straightforward world, yet I didn’t get it. “I wanted to see you,” Tengo said to Aomame. His voice was far away and faltering, but it was definitely his voice. “I wanted to see you, too,” the girl said. The voice sounded like Kumi Adachi’s. He couldn’t make out the boundary between reality and imagination. If he tried to pin it down, the bowl slipped sideways and his brains sloshed around. Tengo spoke. “I should have started searching for you long ago. But I couldn’t.” “It’s not too late. You can still find me,” the girl said. “But how can I find you?” No response. The answer was not put into words. “But I know I can find you,” Tengo said. The girl spoke. “Because I could find you.” “You found me?” “Find me,” the girl said. “While there’s still time.” Like a departed soul that had failed to leave in time, the white curtain soundlessly and gently wavered. That was the last thing Tengo saw.
    • She twisted her body on top of his and Tengo could feel her pubic hair against his thighs. Thick, rich hair. It was like her pubic hair was a part of her thinking process.
    • Once more she rubbed her rich pubic hair against his thigh, as if to leave behind some sort of sign. “Air chrysalises don’t come from somewhere. They won’t come no matter how long you wait.” “You know that.” “Because I died once,” she said. “It’s painful to die. Much more painful than you imagine, Tengo. You are utterly lonely. It’s amazing how completely lonely a person can be. You had better remember that. But you know, unless you die once, you won’t be reborn.” “Unless you die once, you won’t be reborn,” Tengo confirmed. “But people face death while they’re still alive.”
  • Chapter 10 - Ushikawa - Gathering Solid Faces
  • Chapter 11 - Aomame - A Serious Shortage Of Both Logic And Kindness
    • She forgot about the pregancy kits for a while and sat down on the sofa and concentrated on Proust.
  • Chapter 12 - Tengo - The Rules Of The World Are Loosening Up
    • like a capricious, independent-minded cat
  • Chapter 13 - Ushikawa - Is This What They Mean By Back To Square One
    • People might begin to think that somewhere along the line a joker or two had tripped up the goddess of beauty.
    • Like the king whose touch turned everything to gold, every single word he uttered turned unto insipid grains of sand.
  • Chapter 14 - Aomame - This Little One Of Mine
  • Chapter 15 - Not Something He's Allowed To Talk About
  • Chapter 16 - Ushikawa - A Capable, Patient, Unfeeling Machine
  • Chapter 17 - Aomame - I Only Have One Pair Of Eyes
    • “People need routines. It’s like a theme in music. But it also restricts your thoughts and actions and limits your freedom. It structures your priorities and in some cases distorts your logic. In the present situation, you don’t want to move from where you are now. At least until the end of the year you have refused to move to a safer location – because you’re searching for something there. And until you find that something you can’t leave. Or you don’t want to leave.” Aomame was silent. “What that might be, or how much you really want it, I have no idea. And I don’t plan to ask. But from my perspective that something constitutes your personal weak point.”
  • Chapter 18 - Tengo - When You Prick A Person With A Needle, Red Blood Comes Out
  • Chapter 19 - Ushikawa - What He Can Do That Most People Can't
  • Chapter 20 - Aomame - One Aspect Of My Transformation
  • Chapter 21 - Tengo - Somewhere Inside His Head
    • “I don’t think it’s a question of liking or disliking it,” Tengo said. “Then what?” “It was the one thing he was best at.”
  • Chapter 22 - Ushikawa - Those Eyes Looked Rather Full Of Pity
  • Chapter 23 - Aomame - The Light Was Definitely There
  • Chapter 24 - Tengo - Leaving The Cat Town
  • Chapter 25 - Ushikawa - Cold Or Not, God Is Present
  • Chapter 26 - Aomame - Very Romantic
    • “If things work out,” Aomame said. “If you do see him, what are you going to do there?” “We’re going to look at the moon.” “Very romantic,” Tamaru said, gently.
  • Chapter 27 - Tengo - The Whole World May Not Be Enough
  • Chapter 28 - Ushikawa - And A Part Of His Soul
  • Chapter 29 - Aomame - I'll Never Let Go Of Your Hand Again
    • “Don’t you want to know where we’re going?” Aomame asked. Tengo shook his head. The winds of reality had not extinguished the flame in his heart. There was nothing more significant. “We will never be apart,” Aomame said. “That’s more clear than anything. We will never let go of each other’s hand again.”
    • We call this world by different names, Aomame thought. I call it the year 1Q84, while he calls it the cat town. But it all means the same thing. Aomame squeezed his hand even tighter.
  • Chapter 30 - Tengo - If I'm Not Mistaken
  • Chapter 31 - Tengo and Aomame - Like A Pea In A Pod
    • Aomame pressed an ear against his chest. “I’ve been lonely for so long. And I’ve been hurt so deeply. If only I could have met you again a long time ago, then I wouldn’t have had to take all these detours to get here.” Tengo shook his head. “I don’t think so. This way is just fine. This is exactly the right time. For both of us.” Aomame started to cry. The tears she had been holding back spilled down her cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Large teardrops fell audibly onto the sheets like rain. With Tengo buried deep inside her, she trembled slightly as she went on crying. Tengo put his arms around her and held her. He would be holding her close from now on, a thought that made him happier than he could imagine. “We needed that much time,” Tengo said, “to understand how lonely we really were.”

Page last revised on: 2024-05-05