Review: 1Q84

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: In Japan, an Assassin and a writer are coming to terms with their shifted reality in 1984, terming it as 1Q84 as they lives are seemingly parallel lines which are bound to intersect.

Murakami has a very non-linear thought process when describing everyday scenes making it a unique take on everyday stories whilst there is an air of mystery and fantasy that interlays with the reality making you wonder there could be an iota of truth to this unexplained phenomenon. You need to get through the trilogy because at the end of Book 1, you are heavily invested into the characters and the storyline but he literally adds an intermission like a movie that leaves you hanging no better than where you started off.

He follows the journey of two protagonists in alternate chapters keeping you refreshed and on your toes. One who seems to be an assassin and another a writer who will surely intersect at some point in the story. Murakami literally bares the soul of each of the protagonists as he shares their mundane lifestyles gingerly allowing us to really connect with them even when I highly doubt you'd ever meet such an individual in your life. Murakami is prone to adding sex and describing it in the weirdest manner across his book. There are a lot of interesting characters he has introduced so far and how he captures daily life in Japan provides an outsider like me a glimpse into the culture. Noticing oddness in the year, the protagonists decide to call the year 1984 as 1Q84 to mark the shift in reality they feel. Also references to George Orwell's 1984 , a religious sect, Little people as an allegory to Big Brother, there seems to an interesting premise building up.

As a stand alone book, you are only introduced to this world and will have to invest in the entire trilogy (or atleast so I hope) to get closure. Moving on to book 2 to piece this entire story together. Also the book is brandishly slow and big, so assume quite a bit of patience would be required to get through but well worth (or so I hope )

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