Murakami's fiction is never subtle. 1Q84 even more so. The truth about reading this novel, and not understanding it at first glance, is that what it is - the characters, the fantasy, and the two worlds - are never left behind.
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1Q84 is not about finding meaning in lost suffering. It's about casting shadows as fingerprints that you have to leave behind, on everything, as parts of yourself. If we're shadows in this world, without which light remains invisible, this book is its manifestation. A thorough and magical one, no less. The story, detailed and fluid, draws out parallels between reality and reality. While we exist knowing what we are against what we're not. We draw a line between heaven and hell; love and hate; man and woman. In Murakami's world, there exists no such distinction.
But reality is unapologetically split into two. Where you work with time and where you work against it. Where you want to see the world as whole and where you isolate the land, the sky, the ocean... to inherit all their lives. The book declares this unusual relationship between both realities. And in reading every word, turning every page, you transcend the journey from and to where you belong. And when that isn't enough, there's something in this book... in the reader... that will never be complete.