While most writers try to extract the tastiest pieces from their ideas and cook them into a satisfying meal, Murakami revels in including everything. Along with a buffet of events both wonderful and bizarre, he wants you to root through daily minutia: taking out the garbage, exercising, pining, cooking, banal eroticism and and and... These "ands" caused my appetite to wane. At times, I had to restrain myself from skipping repetitive descriptions, echoing dialog, and plot tangents to get back to the juicy stuff (of which there is a lot; it’s over 1000 pages). Some may feel a literary master like Murakami can get away with this because he expatiates on purpose in his unique style, which is both dreamlike and deadpan. For those readers who enjoy making use of every narrative element, boiling them down, curing them, or otherwise doing the work to extract meaning, 1Q84 will captivate. I, however, had trouble digesting it. In summary, 1Q84 is a weighty story with an interesting through line, but you need to have a lot of patience and a taste for wandering details.
Final Thought: At one point, there is an exchange between Aomame, the assassin (for lack of a better term), and her main client’s fixer/bodyguard. “Have you read it?” (Aomame said.) “No, I’ve never been in jail, or had to hide out for a long time. Someone once said unless you have those kinds of opportunities, you can’t read the whole of Proust.” “Do you know anybody who has read the whole thing?” Which book were they actually talking about? This may be a glimpse of 1Q84’s self-awareness. 
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