One of the worlds most popular authors nowadays, many reviewers see no real reason for this.

“ We are living in a fake world; we are watching fake evening news. We are fighting a fake war. Our government is fake. But we find reality in this fake world. So our stories are the same; we are walking through fake scenes, but ourselves, as we walk through these scenes, are real. The situation is real, in the sense that it’s a commitment, it’s a true relationship.” After reading this, I started to understand more of his understanding of the world and how he reflects his idea in his novels. He doesn’t believe that our surroundings nor our actions are real and necessary. To escape this feeling of “nonsense” he creates different worlds in his novels, worlds with 2 moons, worlds where cats can talk. In his imagination he observes that humans, no matter what kind of a world they are living in, will keep on doing exactly what they are doing. That humans don’t really care about their surroundings, that they can adapt to every possible scenario. Proving, again, that the world we are living in is a fake one, it’s components meaningless.

What I find capturing in Haruki Murakami novels is that his novels give the reader a chance to realize how much they don’t realize and care about the changes happening around them. His characters might find themselves in a completely different world, universe or life but the character doesn’t even notice this as he is so attached to his own “universe”. I find this, in a way, like a message he is trying to give and prove; that nowadays, people living in cities, hurrying everytime and to everywhere are lacking the ability to notice the changes in their surroundings. By his narration full of detailed depictions, he leaves the reader with no other choice than reading about and concentrating on the surroundings and environment of the main character. As in his novels the maybe 1000 pages of the novel will be telling more depictions than the actual storyline, for a Murakami reader, it is inevitable not to notice the environment. For me, after reading 1Q84, his approximately 900 pages novel, I couldn’t let go of the habit I got while reading. I found myself more focused and carefull about my surroundings and the changes happening around me.

He also, gives us a chance to live and observe the happenings rather than understanding them. Murakami says; “I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world.” That was why I felt such a tranquility reading to him, because I felt like I had a rare chance of getting out of my obligatory of questioning , understanding and reasoning. This was only possible because you can get the feeling while reading, that there is no reason to why he made the story the way it is, or that he doesn’t have any idea whats going to happen next either. Througout the novel what I felt was like an inside of a very imaginative man, rather than a great, organized, planned author. I could kind of feel the excitement he felt while creating the little people who emerged from the mouths of the goats, because that looks like a momentary excitement’s product rather than an outcome from months and months of planning. Accordingly Haruki Murakami says in his interview: When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. I don’t choose what kind of story it is or what’s going to happen. I just wait. I mean, the most classical example, think of Pride and Prejudice characters. While reading, you can feel that the novel was put down with an idea, with an intention and with a plan which the author knows all over.

However, the most important aspect of his narrating and what always keeps me going through his novels is that he knows the human emotions too very well to which eventually gives him a voice that keeps his novel and story realistic enough. As Murakami says ; “I don’t know if this is “realistic” or “unrealistic,” but for me, my characters are more real than real people. In those six or seven months that I’m writing, those people are inside me. It’s a kind of cosmos.” Also, I love how realistic he is with the human actions. That is what kept me going probably, that he set the equation all too well. On one side he put this story about parallel universes, little people emerging out of the mouth of a goat and on the other side humans, humans who are rarely depicted as novel characters, humans with the simplest of humanistic emotions and actions. Humans, who feel too bored with their lives, who stare at the ceiling. I love reading and I did read a lot of books but the two main characters here, Aomame and Tengo, they were probably the most boring characters I’ve read about. When I mean boring, I try to explain their mood, which is kind of depressed in a way that they cannot even admit their depression or boredom because that’s how detered they are from life. Aomame and Tengo where the factors keeping me close to reality.

I think that Haruki Murakami will be able to keep his importance in literature for the upcoming years as he has such an original voice and a boundless imagination. For me, he is always a great option as he keeps the balance between reality and fantasy.

Read it, share it. It will change your view, it will enable you to see every random person in the subway as an individual.