From
1Q84, by Haruki Murakami:
If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation."
That quote sums up both the message and reading experience of
1Q84. This is a mystery story, but not a whodunnit. The question is not so much "who" dunnit as what the "it" is. The novel eventually gets around to answering that question, sort of, but only at the surface level. The deeper meaning, well, readers are going to have to figure that out for themselves. That's how it should be.
After the jump, my review.