IQ84 BY HARUKI MURAKAMI

This was such an enjoyable and well wrought work. At a time when I was not reading much, it was discovered and restored my excitement about what a book could do, where it could take you, the things it could make you feel when it touched the psyche in the right way and at the correct time. Murakami is a wildly famous novelist in his own country and I believe he is quite famous worldwide. Yet, this is one of those books, like all great books perhaps, that allow the reader to feel like he or she has discovered the work. It is as it says, a love story and a thriller and literature and more all rolled into one. I felt like I slipped after the very first paragraph beyond a book, and into a film, and then beyond a film and into an alternate reality where I was standing there watching the characters. I felt like a ghost who had entered a marvelous story and watched it without closing my ghost eyes for a second. I have my favorite parts of the book, such as when the main character is on the edge of a distant town where an owl hoots in the distance. And there are other parts. All in all, it was a great ride, and the book stayed with me. This is a book that, though I wanted to find out what happened of course, I did not want to end. I have not read other work by Murakami, and though it is probably of great merit, I like IQ84 so much I think I would rather re-read it first and savour it some more before moving on.

RATING 9.5

--------------------------------------------