My rating: 5 of 5 stars
1Q84 is a long, sprawling novel by Haruki Murakami that fans of Haruki Murakami will like. That probably sounds like the stupidest sentence ever written, but I will elaborate. If someone says to you “I am reading a novel by Haruki Murakami,” you should immediately have the following thoughts. “There is some girl who has strange abilities, and some boy who loves her, and she will probably go missing. Also: cats. Crazy things will happen in a very normal world, and only the people directly involved will notice that anything has changed.” You are correct in nearly every particular. There aren’t any important cats, just a cat metaphor.
Three Murakami novels have come out since I started reading him: Kafka on the Shore, After Dark, and now 1Q84. 1Q84 definitely has the worst title, and after a few chapters, when you understand the significance of it, you may find yourself in the really tedious position of explaining it. The two protagonists each have a different understanding of the way their world has changed, and one of them uses 1Q84 to describe the new reality. The other refers to it as the Town of Cats, after a story he reads on a train. That would have been a lousy and misleading title, too.
But you guys, it’s amazing. Read it and read it again and never stop reading it. There are some creepy and offputting things, and it’s 900-odd pages long, but it’s fantastic. And then we’ll talk about it. Because I have a lot of things to say but I don’t know anyone who is going to read this.