Chapter 9 – New Scenery, New Rules

                Aomame goes to the library and reads through newspaper from 1981, searching for information about the event that sparked the change in police uniforms which she can’t seem to remember. She comes across another event which occurred – an NHK fee collector stabbed a college student with a butch knife he was carrying when the student refused to pay his fee, and the man was arrested on the spot – and Aomame has no recollection of this event, either. She thinks it is strange that she cannot remember the story, but chalks it up to having overlooked the article. She finally finds the article she was looking for – “Yamanashi Gunfight With Radicals: 3 Officers Die,” on October 19, 1981. It is impossible that she overlooked this, she believes, and she comes to the conclusion that there is not a problem with her memory, rather the problem lies in the world – or one of two parallel worlds. Her hypothesis is that the world she is currently in is 1Q84, while the real 1984 is in a parallel world, and she resolves to adapt to this strange world she finds herself in.

Chapter 10 – A Real Revolution, With Real Bloodshed

                Tengo and Fuka-Eri continue their journey, leaving the train at Futamato station and taking a taxi into the mountains to the Professor’s house. The Professor questions Tengo and Komatsu’s motives in rewriting Fuka-Eri’s novel and seems to accept Tengo’s answer that it is for the love of literature. The Professor tells Tengo about Fuka-Eri’s parents and her childhood. He and Eri’s father were friends who taught at the same university. When the student revolts began, the Professor chose to leave the university while Eri’s father stayed. Eri’s father was a believer in Mao’s revolutionary ideology and he organized a student group on campus to participate in the strike. Riot police took over the campus and Eri’s father was arrested. After his release, he took his family and several of the students who were in his revolutionary group and moved to Takashima Academy, a sort of commune. They lived there for two years and in that time his group grew in members, enough that they left the Academy to start their own commune, which was established in 1974 and called Sakigake. Tengo thinks he has heard that name before, but he is unable to remember where or why he would know it. As the commune continued to grow, it split into two sides –a militant faction and a moderate faction. The two sides parted ways, splitting into Sakigake and Akebono, and at the same time Fuka-Eri escaped and came to live with the Professor. The Akebono were the group that staged the gun battle with the police – Tengo remembers hearing about the event, but he can’t recall details. His inability to remember the events causes him to have an attack.

Chapter 11 – The Human Body is a Temple

                We get information about Aomame’s background – she graduated from a college of physical education and worked for a health food manufacturing company and played softball, then got a job as an instructor at a sports club. She taught classes in muscle training, martial arts, and women’s self-defense training – mainly, how to kick a guy in the balls. It was at this sports club that she met the dowager of Willow House, who enlisted Aomame to be her personal trainer. In the present, Aomame sips a Tom Collins at a singles bar in the entertainment district. She is looking for a man, but none of them meet her baldness requirements. She is approached by a young woman who suggests that they team up to pick up men. The woman, Ayumi, is a police officer. Aomame asks her about the guns the police carry and they chat about what it is like to be a woman in the police department. Ayumi spots two middle-aged men and goes to make a move.

Chapter 12 – Thy Kingdom Come

                The Professor continues his story. The Akebono were destroyed in the gun battle, and the Professor has been unable to contact Eri’s father in the seven years since Eri showed up at his door. Fuka-Eri was unable to speak for a while and the Professor believes that something happened inside Sakigake that has scarred her and made her unable to tell anyone what happened. The Sakigake has since become a cult-like religious organization and it is unknown what happened to Eri’s father. Tengo and the Professor speculate that Air Chrysalis is based off of things that Eri witnessed when she lived in Sakigake. The Professor admits that the reason he is willing to allow Tengo to rewrite Fuka-Eri’s story is that if the story is about Sakigake, he wants to know what happened and he hopes that Air Chrysalis holds clues to solving the mystery.

Comments

                I find myself interested in the events that are happening in the present, but when there are flashbacks to events in the past I zone out a bit. Especially for Tengo’s sections, because his passages about past events are so long and boring. I want to know more about Air Chrysalis and assassin Aomame (when she’s doing things other than sitting in bars looking for bald guys), and I know it’s coming in the story but it’s taking forever to get there. That’s partially my fault, though, because I’m taking forever to read the novel.

                We finally got our first clue into the link between Tengo and Aomame (the first clue that I’ve picked up on, at least) - neither of them are able to remember the police vs. Akebono gunfight. Tengo remembers it happening, but thinks it is strange that he can’t remember the details or the sequence of events. Aomame knew nothing of it until she asked someone about the change in police uniforms, and she is very concerned about this lapse in memory. So concerned that she decided it must mean that she is in a parallel world, because that’s the obvious conclusion.