Week 2: The Anatomy of a Novel - IQ84

By far one of my favourite authors is Haruki Murakami, and I have been reading his books ever since junior high when I borrowed my mom's copy of The Wind up Bird Chronicle. Since I love to re-read books I enjoy, I have read most of his works at least twice (if not more). This extends to his massive novel IQ84, which I originally encountered as a three-volume set. However, a couple of years later when I purchased a copy of the single-volume edition, I experienced a very different story.

This text was originally published in Japan as a 3-volume set, although I'm unsure whether this was done to appeal to a wider audience, increase sales, or account for the time it took the author to finish the text (likely a combination of all three). Most people I have talked to argue that the single-volume set is inferior, since it ruins the flow of the novel by lumping in Volume III with Volumes I and II (since III was released a full year later in Japan, it contains a lot of re-statement that may seem unnecessarily tedious if the story is read all at once). However, in my opinion the experience of encountering this novel as a single-volume was much better than the experience of the multi-volume set. The book contains two climaxes, at the end of books two and three, and when I first read the novel I lost all excitement for the third book after finishing the second, because the fact that it was physically separate made it seem like it was an accessory (or sequel) rather than a part of the story.

Thinking about this in the context of this course, this implies that not only can the way in which a text as a whole is presented have an impact on its interpretation, but that this impact can be felt differently by different people. You could argue that the digitization of these types of works may somewhat mitigate this impact by eliminating the degree of difference present in the various publications of a single novel; however, you could also argue that it eliminates choice on the part of the reader. I am not sure, at this point, which is preferable.

Murakami, Haruki. IQ84. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2013. (one-volume set)

Murakami, Haruki. IQ84. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2012. (three-volume set)
*there are also two-volume versions available in other countries that include Volumes I and II in one book, and Volume III in another.

Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. New York: Random House, 1998. (read at least three times, I cannot recommend this book enough!)