The initial installment of 1Q84 demanded patience due to its gradual pace, but I persevered given the widespread acclaim for Haruki Murakami’s work. The second book, however, gripped my attention more profoundly. It appears the first book serves as an introduction, while the second delves into an elucidation, building up to the climax.
The portrayal of Aomame’s friendships struck me as peculiar. The depiction of her engaging in sexual relationships with her female friends raised questions, as her sexual orientation is not explicitly revealed as bisexual. It seems like these descriptions cater more to a male fantasy, akin to a porn scene between two women that falls short of authentically portraying a lesbian relationship.
The discomfort intensified as Tengo, a 29-year-old man, described the breasts of Fukaeri, a 17-year-old girl with dyslexia. But for me, the end of the road wasn’t reached until the middle of the second book. In the first book, we encountered a 10-year-old girl who was raped before her menarche and her uterus was torn apart. The leader of the group then used moral relativity to explain that it was not a voluntary decision, that his penis would only get harder, and him lost the control about his own body, while some girls had sex with him. After Aomame kills the leader, the protagonist of the story goes through the same situation. His penis initially hardens from Fukaeri’s youthful scent, which is described as something only young girls can smell, like the high school bus in the morning (which in itself sounds like a pedophile). He then fell asleep and when he woke up he couldn’t move. The sex scene are depicted as Fukairi’s duties and desires, and her hairless genitals are depicted in a manner similar to Vladimir Nabukov’s in “Lolita.”
What scares me the most is that the work introduces the theme of sexual abuse of girls and then plays a game of moral relativism in which adult men are exempted from this guilt. Tengo’s descriptions of his sexual experiences with his penis, including descriptions of the size of his organ’s penetration deep into a small teenager body, are disgusting. The book defends Tengo’s pedophile behavior, while him seems to portray the hero of the book. I don’t know if I have the energy to read a third book, and I’m still trying to understand the hype surrounding this author.His works are described as fiction, but they seem more like a justification for pedophilia.
by iridescentea