Murakami’s ‘1Q84′: Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 is perhaps one of the most important works of science fiction of the year, and at almost 1,000 pages (its original Japanese edition was published in three volumes) of densely plotted, Orwellian prose, it’s one of the heaviest ones – literally and figuratively. It’s a big investment of time, but ultimately a rewarding one: as one of the biggest publishing events of the year, 1Q84 does not disappoint.

The story of a young woman known as Aomame who begins to notice subtle discrepancies in the world around here and hence becomes convinced that she’s entered a new reality variant to her own, and Tengo, a ghostwriter whose life begins to unravel after accepting a questionable assignment, 1Q84 envelops the reader in a shifting world of strange cults and peculiar characters that is surreal and entrancing.

Interestingly enough, Aomame’s perception that she’s in a different or counterfeit world has many real-life analogues:

Derealization is a psychological term indicating the belief that one’s reality is no longer “real”. There’s also delusional misidentification syndrome: a blanket term for a cluster of delusions manifesting in the belief that a person, place or thing has somehow changed. One variety, reduplicative paramnesia, manifests in the belief that one’s surroundings have been replicated and relocated elsewhere. Another variety, Capgras Syndrome, is characterized by the sufferer’s belief that people close to him or her have been replaced by imposters identical in appearance to the originals.

Some of these can be symptoms of schizophrenia, a chronic, sometimes debilitating mental illness characterized by hallucinations, deficits in communication and bizarre, persistent beliefs. In its worst forms – particularly when untreated – it can leave its sufferers navigating a nightmare world of paranoia and illusion.

Not everyone who questions reality is mentally ill – at least by most definitions. Philosopher Nick Bostrom posited that there’s a pretty good chance that our own reality is a complex simulator being run by an ultra-powerful computer. Known as the “simulation hypothesis”, varieties of this theory has existed in one form or another for centuries. Descartes once noted that there are no dependable methods by which to distinguish if one is asleep or awake.

Does science have an answer? Not really. There are physicists who believe that there are multiple “realities”, and that this is just one of them. Combine that with the idea that the simulated reality is just one of them – and is thus no less real than any other – and you’re got a real mind-blower. Or a major headache. Or both.

Practically speaking, there is no way to prove whether we’re experiencing “reality”. To quote Queen, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” We’ll never know. At least we can enjoy good books while we’re here – wherever and whatever “here” is.