Publisher Shinchosha said 500,000 copies would hit bookstores on the first day of sales in Japan and 200,000 more copies would be printed this month. Television images showed 30 people in line outside one Tokyo bookstore. “I've been waiting for today. I am dying to know whether the two characters will finally stay together,” said Kayoko Takeuchi, a 35-year-old office worker, at Tokyo's Yaesu book center in a business district. She stopped by the bookstore during her lunch break. A Shinchosha spokesman said demand for the book was amazing. “We heard that one bookstore sold 100 copies in just one hour,” Takashi Machii said. Like many of Murakami's previous best-sellers, “1Q84” is a complex and surreal narrative. The story shifts between two characters, a young Japanese man and woman who knew each other as schoolmates but parted. He, an aspiring novelist, and she, a sports instructor and an assassin, are now searching for each other. The second volume of “1Q84” -- which can be read as the year “1984” in Japanese -- ended with the man and woman finally close to seeing each other. The novel explores social and emotional issues such as cult religion, violence, family ties and love.
Kanji Otsuka, a 51-year-old businessman at a pharmaceutical company, said he has read almost all of Murakami's works, and “1Q84” is among his favorites. “His books are easy to read, but touch on serious issues in our lives. His books also spark imagination,” a smiling Otsuka said as he held the sequence of “1Q84” at the Yaesu bookstore. Shinchosha declined to say if the third volume would be the end of the “1Q84” story, saying Murakami would decide when the tale was finished.
The first and second volumes of “1Q84” ranked as Japan's top-selling book in 2009, according to publishing distributor Tohan Co. Ltd.
Shinchosha said it has printed a combined 2.44 million copies of the two volumes “1Q84” since their release in Japan last May. The two earlier volumes total 1,000 pages, with the third volume at around 600 pages. Murakami's past works include global best-sellers ”Norwegian Wood,” “Kafka on the Shore” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.”
More than 10 million copies of “Norwegian Wood” have been sold in Japan alone since its release in 1987, according to the book's publisher, Kodansha Ltd. He is considered a top Japanese candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature.
