Murakami’s 1Q84: Topics for Exploration
General Topics
Murakami’s image of Japan (historical, cultural,
imaginative)
Murakami and popular culture (music, literature, film, etc.)
Murakami’s 1Q84 in
relation to George Orwell’s 1984
Murakami and Anime (the Anime aesthetic, possible influence
of Anime)
Murakami and Love (a major theme in 1Q84)
Murakami’s Politics (liberal, conservative, radical?)
Murakami and Slipstream fiction (as case-study/example and
influence)
Murakami and the New Fabulism (as case-study/example and
influence)
Murakami’s Tokyo (the city in his fiction, including other
works; possible comparative work with other Japanese books and films that focus
prominently on Tokyo).
Murakami’s Animism (the Little People, the Air Chyrsalis, The Golden Bough)
Murakami in a Feminist Perspective
Murakami and Metafiction (stories within the story, narrative
wormholes, etc.)
Murakami and Magic Realism (overlaps with the more recent
genre-concept of Slipstream are involved here).
Murakami, Gender, and Queering (is Murakami invested in the
heteronormative, etc.)
Murakami and the Thriller genre (literary, film)
Comparative Topics
These allow you to discuss 1Q84 in conjunction with another book or books that relate to
Murakami’s work. Yes, these mean more reading, but bear in mind that you are
not being required to read large amounts of critical writing and instead are
being given an opportunity to do fresh criticism yourself, here linking
Murakami to other significant writers past or present.
Murakami’s 1Q84 and
one other Murakami novel (obviously this demands considerable reading, but can
be very rich; likely novels include The
Windup Bird Chronicle; Hardboiled Wonderland
and the End of the World; and Norwegian
Wood, among others.)
Murakami and Charles Dickens (his possible novelistic debt
to old-school Victorian fiction and stories of orphans and cities; Oliver Twist and Great Expectations likely texts here.)
Murakami and Neil Gaiman (similarities regarding fantasy,
Slipstream aspects, etc.)
Murakami and George Saunders (the fabulist/postmodern
allegory aspect, others)
more to come!
