1Q84

A fictionalised 1984 running in parallel with the real one. Aomame, a fitness instructor with a sideline, starts noticing that the world has quietly changed; Tengo, a maths teacher ghost-writing a prize-winning novel, is pulled toward the same religious cult from the other direction. The longest thing Murakami has written, and the most openly structural about its two-world conceit.

Context: fourth and last of the titles under the a16z list’s Murakami author entry, and the one that most resembles the science fiction filling the rest of the list — an alternate reality constructed with rules, not just atmosphere.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — the list this came from; Fantasy section, Murakami author entry.
• Haruki Murakami — the author.
• Norwegian Wood — first of the four selected works.
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle — second of the four.
• Kafka on the Shore — third of the four.
• a16z — the firm whose infrastructure team curates the list.