Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

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The familiar unfamiliar is all in place - another great read for those who have been on Planet Murakami before. If you have never experienced the all-encompassing, all engrossing world that is contained singly across Haruki Murakami’s œuvre then this would be the perfect starting point. Red Herring: Although unicorn skulls have an undeniable, albeit cryptic importance to both plotlines, the story about the Soviet scientist investigating alleged unicorn remains in a part of Europe with unusual terrain ends up having no discernible connection to the plot and is completely dropped a few chapters after its introduction. At first the protagonist is sure that this story is of vital importance and that he might even be in possession of the very same skull that had been excavated by the Soviets decades ago, but by the end of the book he seems to have completely forgotten about this idea. While many of the author’s works might be considered fantasy, this one is more science fiction. Though, while I continue not to understand why many folks insist on always combining the two genres, this selection clearly has elements of both. There’s everything from unicorns to moving between worlds. How exactly, outside the author’s own “mind,” the latter takes place, I am not sure. Note: Sendagaya is the home of the former National Olympic Stadium, and currently a new stadium is being built at the same spot. With that in mind, finding your way around Sendagaya’s Gaien Park area may be confusing leading up to the 2020 Olympics due to all the construction taking place.

The novel has another promising theme that goes nowhere. The narrator's shadow, taken away from him and kept under guard, decides not to wait around for the end of the world. Mr. Murakami rightly subordinates this theme The two storylines converge, exploring concepts of consciousness, the subconscious or unconscious mind, and identity. The first narrative ("Hard-Boiled Wonderland") tells the story of an unnamed protagonist in a Cyberpunk future Tokyo who is trained to be what is essentially a human data processor, whose subconscious holds an encryption key to prevent the information from falling into the wrong hands. The second narrative ("The End of the World") follows an individual who has just arrived in a strange walled town where the inhabitants, including the narrator, have been separated from their shadows and are not allowed to go beyond the town wall. The two parallel narratives begin to bleed through into one another as the novel reaches its conclusion, exploring themes of identity and consciousness. Living Shadow: The narrator of The End of the World has been separated from his shadow, which seems to have a mind of its own and which desires to get inside the town so that it can reunite with him.

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My objection is that Mr. Murakami's novel, wherever it calls for imaginative and inventive expansion, fobs us off with generics and categories, as if the agony and beauty of memory were a comic strip, as if love and desire There are comparisons I could make. Flann O'Brien, writing The Third Policeman. That had some similar feelings to it. An animated short I once saw at Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation entitled, simply, "The Village." The aforementioned Number Six and his predicament of stasis. All are recognizable, somewhat, in the second narrative, despite its being quite assuredly its own thing and master. Mind Rape: The procedure required so that a Calcutec can use the "shuffling" technique to encrypt data. Granddaughter: You sometimes get so wrapped up in what you're doing, you don't even think about the trouble you make for others. Remember that ankle-fin experiment? Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World is one of Murakami’s most surrealistic and experimental novels. It’s perhaps the only one that could be categorized as true ‘science fiction.’ Only half of the book takes place in the ‘real’ world, with each alternating chapter taking us to the walled town located deep within the protagonist’s subconscious.

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is really two separate narratives: Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World are two seperate stories, told in alternate chapters of this delightful novel. Fate Worse than Death: Whether or not the protagonist's eternal life in The End Of The World qualifies as this is handled ambiguously, and ultimately left to the reader to decide.

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A number of places mentioned in the novel, such as Jingu Baseball Stadium, are also of special importance to the author. As he writes about in his memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, it was while witnessing a home run at the stadium that he first decided he could write a novel. Meiji Jingu Baseball Stadium Wow, this was an awesome listen. I became a Murakami fan after listening to "1q84" and this was my second Murakami title. I am just as impressed. I found the story riveting, and I couldn't wait to see what happened next.