Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 Review

1Q84 Series Review “A battle between realities”

Haruki Murakami’s longest series of books, consisting of 3 medium/large books, manages to captivate people’s hearts through a writing that dances with the reader.

He could be describing how a normal citizen cooks, and it would be a nice and interesting thing to read. But well every book has more than that so expect something good. 

The plot presents two parallel stories each with its protagonist and a common past. Both protagonists know each other from elementary school: Tengo, a normal math teacher with a normally low wage, who also writes occasionally for certain magazines is requested to rewrite a story some 17 year old wrote to publish it formally, and, knowing the consequences  of rewriting he agrees to do it. He is soon submerged into a mess which has nothing to do with legal issues but will define Tengo’s (and maybe someone’s more) happiness, and reveals the existence of an evil entity called “The little people”.

The second story presents Aomame, who is a gym instructor. She also helps an old lady assassinate men that “deserve to die”, in exchange for some money. Soon, she’ll find out one of the men she was assigned to kill has the key to her happiness, and knows about “The little people”.

The thing is, both characters slowly find out they’re no longer in 1984, and realize they are in another world which is named 1Q84. And they’re both looking for each throughout the book, and it seems that fate wants them together but luck and maybe The Little People don’t want them together. Anyways it is a story about love, destiny, feelings, learning, detail, and happiness. The beauty of the prose, the intensity of the expression and the simplicity of the detail is what makes this series one of the favorites.

Mauricio Aguirre