Wherever I go, people stop me and say, “Rich, have you finished 1Q84  yet?  What did you think?  Should I give it to my husband for his anniversary?”

I’m happy to report that I finished 1Q84 during the fourth quarter of the Giants-Packers game.  Much excitement!

Murakami has a unique way of creating a world that is at once beyond strange but still somehow believable.  But weirdly, even at 925 pages I thought he left too many plot threads unresolved.  With his single-minded focus on his two main characters, he seemed to let everyone else drift away by the end.

Anyway, here is Nat King Cole singing “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” which provides the epigraph for the novel and figures somewhat obsessively in its action and symbolism: