Thursday, February 20, 2003
Title: Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press
While I have seen a number of people recommend Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World as being the perfect starting point for reading Haruki Murakami it is my sixth novel by the renowned Japanese author. I think all of his books feature a male narrator, and like Hardboiled Wonderland, many of the narrators are nameless to the reader. As is the case here, though we can refer to him by his job title, as the character in turn does with all the other characters.
The story is split in two, reflecting the title to some degree. We have the Hardboiled Wonderland where our narrator is a Calcutec - which is a cryptologist for The System. Protecting data for the major corporation against the Semiotecs, agents of The Factory. The other side of the story is set at The End Of The World, a town surrounded by a large fence and populated by some people and unicorns. Here the narrator is a Dream Reader, releasing the secret dreams from the skulls of beasts.
Even with the split into two alternating threads we have a sense that these halves are clearly related. The first person narrative gives a clear feeling that the Calcutec and Dream Reader are the same person. The growing connections only add weight to this idea as the story progresses.
With works like Dance Dance Dance and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles Murakami has displayed a certain surrealness, an ability to step out there for a moment or two. From the start of Hardboiled Wonderland he has taken that step. The character introduced in a silent, possibly moving lift that leads to twisting corridors, which are present in both DDD and WUB. Never looking back Murakami accelerates into the territory that make this his bizarrest work so far. From the professor's studies of skulls and silence to the separation of body and shadow our hero struggles to work out what it is all about. One of my favourite parts of the book being where the character remarks in an off hand manner as part of his narration that you can't expect him to know what's happening.
Some descriptions of Hardboiled Wonderland introduced a certain fear for me, they managed to make it sound silly. However this is likely one of his best works, like the other Murakami books that I have enjoyed it draws the reader in and keeps them reading. His lead characters have a certain unassuming charm, interests which probably seem exotic for Japan, but these Western hooks provide more of a frame of reference for Western readers who are in turn supplied the exotic in the form of location. Though location is less of an issue here in that it has stepped so far out that even when it is set in Tokyo it doesn't really matter. But that is an aside, the grounding of the character allows us to walk through everything that happens to him with an appreciation, a recognition of what is different, taking it as it comes.
RVWR: PTR
February 2003
