1Q84

I finished reading the novel 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.  It took quite a long time because it was 925 pages long.  Which is fine by me; I love a good, long novel more than anything.  I love being invested in the various characters and following multiple story lines.  I like connecting dots and forming an image of a distinct time and place.

This novel was a dream as far as characters and pacing.  Many readers would have found it too slow, too drawn out, and would most likely give up.  Although I'm not sure that's true because once you get to a certain point you will develop a need to know how the story ends.

That would be it's one downfall, though.  The ending was highly anticlimactic.  I, in a way, knew that was coming because Murakami kept invoking Chekov's Gun (Anton Chekov's rule that once a gun is introduced into a story it has to be fired) and there was a palpable feeling throughout that Murakami would break that rule.  He did, but I also expected at least a little more action for an ending, a little more story, than there was.

Overall I would give this book a high B+.  It would have scored an easy A if there had been a little more to the ending because it was all too easy after 900 pages of suspense and tension.