Stories within stories: A study of narrative embedding in Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84

This article analyzes Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 from the perspective of narrative embedding. Drawing on narrative theories of Todorov, Genette, Rimmon-Kenan, Nelles, and others, it examines how the author has manipulated embedding to strengthen his themes and to create a complex novel world. The discussion focuses on two types of embedding repeatedly used in the novel: dream narrative and literary references. It argues that embedding as a narrative strategy has an inherently paradoxical nature: embedded stories advance the action in the story on one hand and retard its development on the other; they enrich the main story and yet at the same time point at a lack of self-sufficiency. This article contemplates embedding in 1Q84 in relation to the metafictional characteristics in Murakami’s works. In dedicating itself to the subordinate structures in a novel, this article aims to show that non-core, secondary descriptions and stories are essential parts that shore up a novel’s world. Copyright © 2016 Taylor & Francis, Inc.