Written in classic Murakami style, 1Q84 questions the boundary between dreams, reality and fantasy. It takes you on a long journey with two protagonists whose lives are entangled in the strangest ways. They are very simple from a superficial standpoint, but I imagine them to be more like a rose growing of a ground covered with snow. Very simple and elegant with little to their complexity, but very fragile, out of place and temporary.
Murukami aced it. There is never too much detail, and there is never a lack of it either. Much like the characters he depicts in the novel who never say a word in excess, Murukami does the same in the way he writes. He lures you in, and makes you wonder. He makes you question your surroundings. He makes you question your values. He makes you think back to your first memory, and forces you to re-evaluate the present, while disregarding the future.
It’s difficult to separate what his characters are imagining versus what they are experiencing. Is anything really happening? Murukami is treading in very thin water, on a very fine, in every chapter, on every page, in every line. The novel was just a love story, but for what purpose, and at what costs? It’s hard not to bond with his characters, and I kept seeing more and more of myself in them as I kept on reading.
This novel was a passageway of sorts, that lured me into a different way of thinking, without a way back. So here I am, stranded, writing this review, with the moon hanging in the sky outside my window.