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Last night at Elliott Bay Book Company, frequent Haruki Murakami translator Jay Rubin says that Murakami's goal with his new novel, 1Q84, is to write what he calls "a comprehensive novel." He certainly achieved that; 1Q84 is that rare kind of book that reaches out and absorbs whatever happens to be lingering in the atmosphere around it. Not every road in the novel leads somewhere; many of the paths just lead back on themselves, or to nowhere at all. (Think of Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City, a novel that swallowed its own acknowledgements page and incorporated it into the plot, and you have a good idea of what 1Q84's "comprehensive novel" is like.)

Some of the things that 1Q84 has consumed is Murakami's guide to good writing ("Good style happens in one of two ways; the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it,") a brief biography of Anton Chekhov, a thriller, a meditation on violence against women, and a love story. But, most of all, it's a love story. Rubin explained that the novel was a massive escalation of Murakami's four-and-a-half page story, "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning." It's the story of Tengo and Aomame, who once loved one another as children but have since grown apart. (Rubin notes that Murakami flips gender roles in Japanese literature by referring to his protagonists in nontraditional ways: "Aomame" is the woman's surname and "Tengo" is the man's given name) Murakamian elements abound—most fantastically, supernatural spirits called the Little People, who Rubin is fairly certain Murakami wants us to imagine as the Seven Dwarfs from the Disney version of Snow White.

Rubin translated the first two books of 1Q84 and, as a woman in the audience pointed out, the difference between his book and the final book, which was translated by Philip Gabriel, is striking. The third book's translation, as she said, is "fuzzier" and lacks some of Rubin's clarity and precision. (As Michelle Belin said in her review of 1Q84, too, the third book adds a third narrator whose additions feel unnecessary. A sharper editor, perhaps, could have convinced Murakami to condense the entire book into two, more symmetrical, volumes.) The fumble, though, is not disastrous; it merely drags out the story a little longer than it should. But since Murakami constructed the story to consume anything in its path, a little bit of extra rambling isn't too much of a sin. Even if you have to read a few extra pages to get to the conclusion, your punishment is just to read extra pages of Murakami. Anyone who has read him can tell you: That's not a punishment. It's the best kind of reward.