Review of Hard Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
If you know anything about Japanese literature, you must have heard about Murakami. He is the most successful Japanese writer and his books have been translated to a great many languages. I am a big fan of his writing, especially his early writing, until the mid nineties more or less. Some of his later works are a bit too long and a little too complicated for me. Many of his protagonists, at least in the earlier period, were outsiders- Men in their mid thirties who were not married and did not work as salarymen in big corporations. Some of them opened bars, became writers (big surprise huh?) in short, went outside of the Japanesse mainstream as Murakami himself had done. Most of them liked Jazz music and Russian literature.
I think you could switch some of his protagonists and nobody would notice the difference. But that doesn`t matter because Haruki Murakami's writing is completely magical in a very simple and dreamlike way. When I read it I sometimes delude myself that this is very easy and I could have easily written a similarly magical dreamlike book. But this is a secret Murakami shares with no one I guess and I simply cant do it. I think that in “Hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world” Murakami reached the peak of his magic.
This book consists of two stories that intertwine and gradually converge. One is a story about a futuristic Tokyo where humans are used as sort of biological computers and the underground world is roamed by terrible monsters called Inklings. the second world is a beautiful but terrible place where golden unicornes gracefully walk in green pastures, but actually its a prison where people's minds are stolen. If you haven`t yet read the book this would mean nothing to you, I am sure, so don't waste any more time, read it!
Other reviews by Hovav you may want to read:
- Review of The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo >>
- Review of Ring by Koji Suzuki >>
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