Title: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Publication Year: 1985
Plot: ‘A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami’s international following. Tracking one man’s descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.’
Miscellaneous: Murakami has often referred to his love of Western literature and particular admiration for hard-boiled pioneer Raymond Chandler. “Hard-Boiled Wonderland” owes much to American”hard-boiled” detective fiction, as well as to science fiction and cyberpunk, but the book does not belong in any of those categories.
We started where else, but at the beginning. The scene with the protagonist on the elevator (which spans quite a few pages) really hooked the group! And they were surprised by this. Murakami has a way of making the mundane enchanting. It really got into the minds of the readers.
We also talked about the severing from shadows that occurs in the novel. One reader brought up the Jungian implications of this. We talked about what the shadows “mean.” One reader said they symbolize the awareness of what reality is, thus a severance from them throws one into a “non-real” world.
Finally, we talked about fairness and the battle within ourselves of what it means for something to be fair, and what our expectations are of fairness in life. Towards the end of the novel, the narrator gets fairly philosophical, which lead us to ask a question as a group: What would you do if you knew you had 48 hours left to live? Answers varied, especially when talking about if we would tell someone or not.
Oh, and before I forget, we loved the part where the narrator points out the difference between buying a fancy car and buying sofas that match a room. One just requires a lot of money, while the other requires experience and a philosophy. Overall, we enjoyed the book. It was a dreamlike and surreal departure from the hardcore SF we’ve been reading.
The discussion was cut a little short, as we had to vote on a filmed adaptation to watch, as well as the theme for our new book club! They’d like to watch Dune (it was either that, Dracula, or John Carter). And we decided to read some horror fiction next. We talked about some of the authors and types of books we’d like to read.
Feel free to leave any comments about Murakami or anything else below.
Next time we’ll be talking about The Fifth Season.
Until next time,
E
If you’d like to purchase Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, you may do so here: