I haven't made it through book 1 of 1Q84 yet but

I have this little monologue that runs through my head every moment I'm reading Tengo's parts.

1Q84, I should explain, is a book by Haruki Murakami. I love his short stories, but I don't understand this book. We have, so far, two parallel stories about two separate people who seem to magically have been transported into a slightly shittier parallel universe. Aomame, a professional killer of men who abuse women, and Tengo who's a writer of sorts. Aomame's story interests me, although it has the clear marks of a writer who definitely isn't a woman, but Tengo's is endlessly frustrating.

Tengo's editor, Komatsu, ropes him into editing a novel written by the young, dyslectic, probably Autistic Fuka-Eri. It's a credibly amazing story, but very badly written, so Tengo's work is extensive. He apparently rewrites the novel in ten days. And bit by bit he gets dragged into Komatsu's plot to - get this - hide the fact that Fuka-Eri's foster father and foster sister and Tengo all helped her write the book.

The haughty literary circles of Japan, we're told, won't accept a collaborative author effort. So they have to pretend Fuka-Eri wrote it herself. Virtually every page dwells on how Tengo thinks this is fraud and is never going to work, and everyone agrees with him it's incredibly dangerous and will ruin all their careers if it comes out. Which, the narrative insists, it will.

The five characters named so far are the only ones who have ever seen Fuka-Eri's original manuscript, and all of them want to keep the secret except the foster sister who doesn't seem to exist. There's actually no way anyone could prove that Tengo did the work he did on the novel. No evidence puts the pen in his hand. And even if it could be done, Fuka-Eri gives his edits her blessing and it's her story. There is no problem, except Tengo is so nervous and so consumed with fear of being found out he's almost certainly going to blow it.

The monologue, I picture Tengo saying at the press conference. It's mostly something like "I'm Tengo. I'm Fuka-Eri's editor. It's been my incredible pleasure to polish her remarkable story. It has been extensive work for everyone involved in making this book happen, you can be sure. But I'm sure we would do it all again twice over if we had to. This story is worth it, Fuka-Eri's story deserves all that. But I wanted to make one thing clear: While my editing work on the story has been extensive, maybe unusually extensive, I am but a humble editor. The story, from the first word to the last, is Fuka-Eri's. The credit is hers."

Just get in front of this dumbass scandal and control the narrative. It could (and will probably) be made to sound super bad. You could easily spin it as a cabal of sweaty old men simultaneously masquerading as, stealing the work of, manipulating and also profiting on a disabled teenage girl, and bamboozling the honorable literary elite on top of that. All of which is probably exactly what's going to happen because these five people combined don't have two brain cells to rub together to start a fire.

It's baffling to me. Murakami has published like fifteen books, it's not like this solution can have escaped him. And it can't be that interesting to write about people being bad at the same job you're good at. Maybe it will make sense later on, but I've chewed on this for like a month now and I have to write it down to maybe be able to get through the book faster.