1Q84

In the past, movies were shot like novels. Now, novels are written like movies. The language of cinema has infiltrated literature. Novels are becoming more visual, less psychological. Characters act in discrete scenes, rather than think or feel in a great continuum. Plot is more important than style. I have just finished the 925 pages of 1Q84, the first book by Murakami I have ever read and I feel like I went to a movie — well maybe a movie and a couple of sequels. I cannot really explain why I finished the novel — it did not seem to me great or unputdownable. Somehow, though, the story draws you in and so does the style — as he himself says, deceptively simple. It felt like a kind of pop literature of a high order.