Murakami Haruki’s new book 1Q84, his 12th long novel, went on sale today (technically yesterday, Friday 29th). Shinchosha was being completely secretive about the story before it was published and didn’t even give any hints on the novel’s official site, just that it was more or less connected to Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore which are all in my personal top 5 of the greatest Haruki books ever written. (A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance would be the remaining two titles on that list.)

Now Shinchosha offers a lot more information on the novel which is published in two hardcover volumes (1,890 yen each). The Japanese reading of the novel’s titel, ichi-kyuu-hachi-yon, probably makes it easier to guess that it stands for the year 1984. Whereas Orwell’s 1984, written in 1949, was science fiction in the sense that it presented a possible future, Murakami’s 1Q84 is supposedly a novel about the past as it could have been, depicting some sort of parallel world to the “real” 1984 as it might have happened but, as fiction, didn’t. (Not that 1984 wasn’t a year that hasn’t been extensively written about in the Murakami universe.)

There’s also a Japanese Wikipedia page for the book now, with a short plot summary and character introductions (which I’m trying hard not to read to avoid spoilers), and amazon.co.jp already has a few customer reviews up whereas last night there were none. (I hope no one was crazy enough to read the whole 1000+ pages in one day o_O) Currently there are 6 reviews for book one, 5 of which gave the book 5 stars. Argh, anticipation~ Can’t wait till my books get here!

It must have been maybe three years ago, when simply everybody, especially offline media, started talking about the so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon, that I started to have difficulties with expressing myself properly online until I felt I had to become completely silent. I think I became so sick of coming across all this meaningless triviality both in words and in pictures (15-year olds camwhoring on MySpace etc.) that faced with this flood of trash I just didn’t want to be a part of it anymore and help increase the word pollution.

Now, I certainly haven’t been going online for serious business only. That’s what real life is largely all about, after all. The internet is mainly for keeping myself informed on the more fun stuff, for entertainment. It also used to be about communication, but somewhere along the way, as described above, I simply lost the ability to communicate online, in every form imaginable. This isn’t meant to sound dramatic in any way. It was just a natural process, I guess. And so I became an invisible internet user who didn’t make much noise, who only consumed quietly what the people I still cared about posted. The internet in small doses. That was enough for me.

Slowly but surely I want to start writing again, here and in other places, but I’ve tried to do that so many times and always failed in the end but… maybe this time will be different. I’m so used to doing my fangirling, my obsessing over the things that I appreciate on an academic, hence offline level now that just posting little things and quick notes online isn’t as easy as it used to be. There’s this huge wall that keeps me from finishing up stubs and sketches and finally publish them here because I guess I’m still hesitant when it comes to making noise, making myself visible.

(That said, I don’t think I’ll ever have a page on MySpace or Facebook.)