Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International)

by Haruki Murakami

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International)

published	March 2nd 1993 by Vintage
first published	2006
binding	Paperback
isbn	0679743464 (isbn13: 9780679743460)
pages	400
description	Japan's most widely-read and controversial writer, author of A Wild Sheep Chase, hurtles into the consciousness of the West with this narrative...more [close] Japan's most widely-read and controversial writer, author of A Wild Sheep Chase, hurtles into the consciousness of the West with this narrative about a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters -- not to mention Bob Dylan and Lauren Bacall. [close]
date added	02-15-07 edit book

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Pyk

Pyk rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

03/28/08

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: off-tangents

Imagination. Do not read the book if you do not have it.

Hard-boiled Wonderland is an exercise of imagination if you run out of daydream. An imagination that takes you out of your shell but later sets you back grounded. It is a book that requires sheer imagination, so you can understand humor in reality especially the ordinary ones.

Haruki writes 2 stories in alternate sequence - one seeming to be the prelude of the end of the world, another a wonderland - but likely to converge in one plo...more

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Scott

Scott rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

03/17/08

Read in March, 2008

Novels in which there is more than one narrative line are kind of like the spread offense of literature: It’s been vogue for a while now but it’s still always a little unsettling for the reader (who presumably expects the comforting chronologies of nineteenth-century fiction, which is like expecting your standard run-for-two-downs-pass-only-on-third-and-long type of offense).

A Goodreads “friend” of mine below, called Brian, wrote of how he thought of this book as being like a video g...more Novels in which there is more than one narrative line are kind of like the spread offense of literature: It’s been vogue for a while now but it’s still always a little unsettling for the reader (who presumably expects the comforting chronologies of nineteenth-century fiction, which is like expecting your standard run-for-two-downs-pass-only-on-third-and-long type of offense).

A Goodreads “friend” of mine below, called Brian, wrote of how he thought of this book as being like a video game at one point: I can see what he’s saying: the one storyline is like an elaborate real-world Super Mario game, with dungeon villains that are never described, a princess in pink, and a mysterious elder that gives you cryptic hints about things (and you warp to another level by passing through the waterfall). The other storyline is more of a role-playing thing, with more characters roaming around giving you helpful hints; it’s for people who like putting together their own world, like Animal Crossing.

The ideas of HBWEW are zany and just barely make sense. Very little is imparted to the reader via description or a character’s fleshed-out thinking: most everything important is communicated in dialogue. HBWEW is very talk-heavy.

It’s also filled with stray ruminations that could definitely be seen as unnecessary (such as why are there so many paperclips in the world, or how comfortable sofas are nice and worth the money). These tidbits have the effect of being thrown in just to remind you that the people being written about are human beings.

So, yeah, it’s surrealistic, but not in an awful Andre Breton way, in which everyone including the author are confused and having a miserable time; with Murakami, the foundations of the stories are out there and fantastical but the workings within them are amusingly prosaic. Some of the funnier parts in the book work off of people having normalish conversation in insane circumstances.

Sometimes the descriptions seemed flat in comparison to what was described, with the narrator retreating into a Dante-like apology of nondescription—-“What can I say, it looked really crazy….”—-and then briskly moving on to continue conversing with so-and-so.

The movement of the plot is weird because even though plenty is going on in both storylines, things seem really still. That sentence barely makes sense, but I think the reason HBWEW feels this way is because the broad movement of the novel is relentlessly consistent from section to section: HBWEW moves at the exact same pace from beginning to end.

Anyhow, it’s definitely on the macro level that this book is most impressive. There is no one thought/paragraph/description that’s outstanding: it’s all plodded together to build this really impressive edifice. The wild ideas and imagery make it worth it.
...less

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Andrew

Andrew rated it:

04/30/07

Read in April, 2007

recommends it for: Fans of Murakami or fans of duality/dichotomy

This is your brain (an egg). This is your brain on Murakami (an egg sprouting arms and legs and attempting to hump other eggs while doing the Electric Slide and attempting to save the world to a killer soundtrack).

If you like Murakami, you'll like it, although it doesn't blend the two twisted sides of Murakami's writing as well as a book like "Norwegian Wood" or "Kafka on the Shore." In each of those novels, the reader gets transitions within chapters, and his talents fo...more This is your brain (an egg). This is your brain on Murakami (an egg sprouting arms and legs and attempting to hump other eggs while doing the Electric Slide and attempting to save the world to a killer soundtrack).

If you like Murakami, you'll like it, although it doesn't blend the two twisted sides of Murakami's writing as well as a book like "Norwegian Wood" or "Kafka on the Shore." In each of those novels, the reader gets transitions within chapters, and his talents for myth-telling in both the mystical and mundane worlds is woven together like two different colored pieces of yarn, fraying and blending at the end. A depressed hippy juggles his daily life - student and record-store shop employee who occasionally trolls for women with his amoral college roommate - with his intensely personal life - a boy growing into a man, learning about love, heartbreak and death. A talking cat accompanies a small boy on his adventures, the boy eating a lot of diner food and not really doing much but hanging out at the library. These are the things you get with Murakami, but they usually coexist fairly nicely, driving toward a space where fantasy and reality decide to have a nice conversation.

"Hard Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World" is aptly titled, because it really is two separate stories - the "And" is paramount - they are woven together, but more like two noodles can be woven together, but never quite mesh. Oddly, the formal structure of the book - one chapter in reality, one chapter in myth - lends itself to reading the two stories as each lending to the other, but one could almost (until the very end) read each one as independent of the other. Murakami's "reality" is far-flung and outlandish, but it obeys its own rules, and takes the reader for a nice tragic ride. The "myth" is much more prosaic and sedate, but is clearly too serene to be reality. Perhaps it is Murakami's commentary on life: truth is stranger than fiction, especially when the fiction is based on the truth is based on the fiction...

The novel could be an ouroboros, but instead it is a little like the hospital symbol of a serpent wrapped about a knife. To understand this, read the book. I can't describe it any better than this. It gets a four, because it's frankly a little too self-reflexive for me - no main character should really ever say, "Stuff like this only happens in novels," as far as I'm concerned - but it is a stylistic precursor to Murakami's most famous and best work (that I've read), "Kafka on the Shore," so you get to see how Murakami's style evolves, a dualistic peek into the development of a dichotomous author.

...less

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Brian

Brian rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

02/19/08

Read in January, 2008

I liked this book. The plot drives it and there are two of them, plots. They begin as two seperate stories that slowly flirt with and then finally meet each other and then become one at the end, like in a marriage! I liked how the two stories worked together at first, but then I slowly began to dread their actually "coming together", because it really seemed that some sort of cop-out was going to happen to make the stories make sense. But actually it ends in a nice, open way, and t...more I liked this book. The plot drives it and there are two of them, plots. They begin as two seperate stories that slowly flirt with and then finally meet each other and then become one at the end, like in a marriage! I liked how the two stories worked together at first, but then I slowly began to dread their actually "coming together", because it really seemed that some sort of cop-out was going to happen to make the stories make sense. But actually it ends in a nice, open way, and the ending of the book is probably the most poignant thing about it, and really "made it all worth it". So if you're like me, maybe you'll have that suspicion too, as you're reading the book... but if you're like me, you probably wouldn't be reading this review! Ha!

Also lots of talk about "the mind", but not "the mind" as usually thought of or recognized in our philosophies or stuff like that, but "the mind" as a thing that exists that has unique properties that only scientists in this book understand, like in sci-fi. Like, if I add this memory to your mind, but hide if from you, what would... etc, etc. Or "the mind" as the "the soul."

The writing is, oh, short and simple. Lots of short and simple sentences. Short and simple paragraphs. Short, simple dialogue. It seemed inconsistent, as far as tone and engaging me. One thing about it is that there are a lot of irreverant cultural observations, little jokes going on in the characters head and lots of little one-off sentences that often fell flat. I couldn't help but imagine that maybe Japanese readers laughed their asses off at some of this stuff, and that maybe it's the translation that made the writing so stilted and devoid of comic timing - that just maybe Haruki Murakami is a really funny writer but the translator is really unfunny. That Haruki Murakami and the translator are like the two distinct plots in the book, where Murakami's cool ideas are combined with the translator's bad writing. Or maybe Murakami is just Japan's Kurt Vonnegut.

But the book has a heart that beats despite it's crippling wording, a deformed heart, but a heart nonetheless, god damn it. I had the thought somewhere in the middle of it that it'd make a good videogame but I sort of last that train somewhere near the end.

EDIT: Actually, I do remember that in the last third of the book there were some beautiful passages that brought up these great images of loss and of memory and life, that combined with the mayhem and hi-jinks found throughout a lot of this book sort of created something unique. Even though gave it 3 stars, I would generally recommend this book to any of my friends....less

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Tiffany

Tiffany added it (review of isbn 0099448785)

10/28/07

Read in January, 2008

Well this book is written by the same author as Kafka on the Shore. I wasn't really surprised at the technique the author used. He does tend to shift from one character and back to the other. Like usual I don't exactly know how the two characters relate during the beginning and middle of my reading but somehow when I finish reading I figure it out. This book contains the two main characters: the Dreamreader and the Calcutec. This book is written based on first person narration from both characte...more Well this book is written by the same author as Kafka on the Shore. I wasn't really surprised at the technique the author used. He does tend to shift from one character and back to the other. Like usual I don't exactly know how the two characters relate during the beginning and middle of my reading but somehow when I finish reading I figure it out. This book contains the two main characters: the Dreamreader and the Calcutec. This book is written based on first person narration from both characters. The characters alternate in each chapter. It's pretty interesting yet confusing. This book was actually a bit confusing. Some parts I either didn't understand the language (writing style, diction) or I just couldn't imagine the story based on the words. This author can be extremely descriptive(sometimes to a point where I want to stop reading. ex: In one chapter the author describes a brief step by step of how the Big Boy destroys the Calcutec's home and how Junior cuts a line about 6 centimeters on the Calcutec's skin, the belly area)and since I have a good imagination, I can imagine the story while I'm reading it. I do admit that sometimes I do get chills from the descriptions and freak just a bit. Overall I really liked this book. I hope to look forward to reading more of his writing. Like the previous book I read, I am still amazed at how this author can shift from one character to another and still find a way to give the reader suspense; it lures me in the book. And also how the author can intertwine these two different yet similar characters but in an extremely confusing way that it can't be figured out until the end.

The two characters in the book were similar yet very different. At first I thought it was just the same character but in different dimensions. They both had a connection with the unicorn's skull. The Calcutec has something embedded in his brain called "the End of the World". He's the launderer and the shuffler. When he does shufflig he isn't conscious. He just listens to a specific tone to activtate "the End of the World". He gets into that conscience and writes the shuffled data. When he's done he comes back into his right mind.

The other character is the dreamreader who lives in a place called "the End of the World". He has been separated with his shadow and he's attempted to get it back. In this place nobody has a shadow. Apparently it's not needed and it will only cause trouble. This place is also not escapable. There's a wall that blocks people from going out. he does see the shadow once and the shadow asks for a map. The dreamreader makes one....less

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Andrea

Andrea rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

01/03/08

Read in December, 2007

I had to think about whether or not I loved this book, which, I ultimately decided, must mean I didn't.

It's always hard with translations because you never know if the book's wonderfulness or awfulness is the fault of the author or the translator. This is an interesting case, as it is really two books in one and I do not feel the same about them.

"Hardboiled Wonderland" is narrated in an overly detailed, unemotional, almost computer-like way. I believe the author's intent here w...more I had to think about whether or not I loved this book, which, I ultimately decided, must mean I didn't.

It's always hard with translations because you never know if the book's wonderfulness or awfulness is the fault of the author or the translator. This is an interesting case, as it is really two books in one and I do not feel the same about them.

"Hardboiled Wonderland" is narrated in an overly detailed, unemotional, almost computer-like way. I believe the author's intent here was to show the narrator—his job being what it is—as a very no-nonsense, analytical type—almost part machine in a way. I understand this reasoning, but good reasons don't always make for good writing. I found myself skimming these chapters because I just couldn't take so much of, "I awoke at 7am, went to the refrigerator, opened the door and took out a beer. I walked to the table and drank the beer. When I was done, I removed another beer from the fridge and drank that as I dressed to go to the liquor store for more beer. On the way to the store, the cute chubby girl in the pink skirt and gold earrings came rushing up to me. There was something wrong with her grandfather, the scientist."

There were other parts of "Hardboiled Wonderland" that made it hard for me to really get into it, like the way the grandfather/scientist spoke. Rarely do I like speech written in dialect and this was not an exception. I could also have done without the INKlings, which totally threw off the believability of this book for me. I think it could have been more terrifying and more believable had the shadowy villains been zombies. That said, without "Hardboiled Wonderland" the lovely and dreamlike tone of "End of the World" would perhaps not been as lovely. So, it serves a purpose after all.

"End of the World" delighted me, even though it had mythical creatures just as "Hardboiled Wonderland" did and was overall much more unrealistic. I liked it, though, because the things which the narrator seemed to be unable to explain and the mysterious ways of the town were so dead-on the way dreams really are, that I was actually really impressed with the author's ability to recreate that feeling of everything being that way because it just IS.

I liked the ending because it was exactly what I didn't want the narrator to do, which would have been dumb and boring. On the whole, I have to say that this was not one of my favorite books, but I appreciate it anyway. I do intend to read more Murakami, though this work of his has made me put up my guard....less

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Allen Wilcox

Allen rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

05/01/08

bookshelves: existential-canon

Read in April, 2008

The following is a chronological ordering of my reading of Haruki Murkami's novels to date:

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (March-April 2006)
A Wild Sheep Chase (April 2006)
South of the Border, West of the Sun (April 2006)
Sputnik Sweetheart (June 2007)
After Dark (June 2007)
Kafka on the Shore (July 2007)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World (April, 2008)

Of these novels, Kafka on the Shore is a wondrous marvel and has the most fully-integrated plot, The Wind-up Bird Chronic...more The following is a chronological ordering of my reading of Haruki Murkami's novels to date:

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (March-April 2006)
A Wild Sheep Chase (April 2006)
South of the Border, West of the Sun (April 2006)
Sputnik Sweetheart (June 2007)
After Dark (June 2007)
Kafka on the Shore (July 2007)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World (April, 2008)

Of these novels, Kafka on the Shore is a wondrous marvel and has the most fully-integrated plot, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle achieves the greatest psychic eminence, and After Dark and A Wild Sheep Chase are well constructed and enjoyable books. I look very much forward to reading Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World - it has been sitting on my shelf for over a year and I believe the time is nigh. I expect the book to be on par with A Wild Sheep Chase in terms of narrative range, metaphysical insight and relative fun.

*

I've heard Murakami's writing referred to as "pop surrealism" - and I think that this is generally apt, so far as designations of that sort are like the Dogen "finger pointing at the moon" (where the "moon" is enlightenment and the "finger" is language or religion, etc) - but something that needs to be underscored is that the 'pop' aspect of Murakami's voice does not make the surrealism any less authentic. It doesn't not diminish the fact that the sometimes extreme violence that punctuates his novels is mythy and metaphorical, and that these metaphors work in a web, or rather, like light in a series of refracted mirrors, alternately illuminating and obscuring meaning in the narrative.

I enjoy these books not because they "make me better" but because they provide some of the most well-rounded entertainment available. Makes one believe, even for the duration of a novel that our dreamlife is our true life.

*

In the end, "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World" is a lucid though psychologically disturbed account - a testament to the consequences of memory and decision making, interspersed with the deep, humane pleasures of food and music.

A terrific book....less

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Brooke

Brooke rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

02/05/08

bookshelves: 2008

Read in February, 2008

I'd previously read two Haruki Murakami novels, A Wild Sheep Chase, and After Dark, his earliest and most recent that have been translated into English, respectively. After hearing about how he was one of Japan's most beloved authors, I was really underwhelmed by those two offerings. Sheep was almost too bizarre to really appreciate, and After Dark was short and enjoyable, but nothing special. After reading Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, howeve...more I'd previously read two Haruki Murakami novels, A Wild Sheep Chase, and After Dark, his earliest and most recent that have been translated into English, respectively. After hearing about how he was one of Japan's most beloved authors, I was really underwhelmed by those two offerings. Sheep was almost too bizarre to really appreciate, and After Dark was short and enjoyable, but nothing special. After reading Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, however, I suddenly Got It.

The title refers to the two portions of the book - Hardboiled Wonderland is about a man who mentally processes information for a living - it's vaguely sci-fi-ish, but not enough to turn off readers who aren't interested in sci-fi. This nameless man finds himself running for his life underground when various groups suddenly decide they want him for their purposes. The End of the World is about a man who suddenly arrives in a unicorn-filled town that is surrounded by a Wall. He doesn't know how he got there or where he was before, and he must have his shadow cut away from him in order to live within the Wall. The novel goes back and forth between each half, which eventually start to tie together.

It's kind of similar to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, but that comparison will only take you so far. Murakami's nameless protagonists are more introspective than Gaiman's Richard Mayhew, and in the end, the focus is on what's going on within, rather than the action outside.

Despite flipping back and forth between the two halves, the novel flows very well. It kept my attention so well that I was eagerly looking forward to picking it up each time I had a chance to read, which is something I haven't felt about the last half-dozen or so books I've read. The novel was written in 1985, but other than the mention of cassettes, there was no sign that it was written over twenty years ago.

I'm really glad I didn't give up on Murakami after being disappointed by his first two that I read. Hopefully the rest of his books will hold some of the magic that Hardboiled Wonderland has, because I'll really feel let down if I go back to being underwhelmed again....less

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Rob

Rob rated it:

06/13/08

Having just finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and being confused by some aspects of that book, I decided to dig deeper in Murakami’s earlier work in the hope of finding some answers. Hard-Boiled Wonderland did in fact shed some light on the use of the narrator’s subconscious mind in Wind-Up Bird. The give and take between the conscious and subconscious is forefront in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, much like it was a theme in Wind-Up Bird, with the main difference being the narrator’s mind in ...more Having just finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and being confused by some aspects of that book, I decided to dig deeper in Murakami’s earlier work in the hope of finding some answers. Hard-Boiled Wonderland did in fact shed some light on the use of the narrator’s subconscious mind in Wind-Up Bird. The give and take between the conscious and subconscious is forefront in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, much like it was a theme in Wind-Up Bird, with the main difference being the narrator’s mind in Hard-Boiled Wonderland has literally been split by a scientist, where in Wind-Up there is no scientific explanation of what is going on in the "split" mind of the narrator. I now can applaud Murakami for doing what he did in Wind-Up. In that book he wasn’t overly concerned with the explanation of WHY there was such an odd interplay between the conscious and subconscious. Instead he trusted his reader to focus on the general importance of the interplay between the two.

This brings me to what I didn’t like about Hard-Boiled Wonderland: too much explanation. The main driving force in Hard-Boiled Wonderland is explaining WHY there is a split in the narrator’s mind. One storyline in the book takes place in modern day Tokyo while the other takes place within the subconscious mind of the narrator. What pulls the novel forward is the reader’s anticipation of finding out why this split exists, and what part of the narrator’s mind will win out in the end? What part of the narrator’s mind will become his permanent consciousness? In answering these questions Hard-Boiled Wonderland gets bogged down in its explanation, I think. Or maybe a better way to put it is that the plot becomes more important than the characters. By the end of the novel I wasn’t as invested in the characters as I was in Wind-Up. In Hard-Boiled, the narrator is thirty-five-year-old dude who acts like a sexist eighteen-year-old. That got pretty old. And by the end of the novel I really didn’t care that much where he ended up. It was an interesting enough journey where the novel took me, but in the end, emotionally, it just wasn’t as powerful as I hoped it would be....less

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Ben

Ben rated it:

10/05/07

bookshelves: adultfic, fantasy

Read in January, 2006

I heart Murakami. He can write one character so well that combined with his thoroughly fantabulous imagination, he can make reading about that one guy engaging every time. I booktalked this one in library school, and reproduced the talk below.

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are two stories in one book. This isn’t so unusual, nor is the fact that they’re related. What is strange is that they’re told ...more I heart Murakami. He can write one character so well that combined with his thoroughly fantabulous imagination, he can make reading about that one guy engaging every time. I booktalked this one in library school, and reproduced the talk below.

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are two stories in one book. This isn’t so unusual, nor is the fact that they’re related. What is strange is that they’re told simultaneously, and seem to be about the same person. I say seem because we don’t know his name.

The odd chapters take place in Tokyo. Our hero is a Calcutec – a human data shuffler.. He works for the System, an agency dedicated to keeping information scrambled and safe from the Factory, an agency dedicated to exploiting that information. One day his job takes him to the secret office of a scientist, a seeming madman whose research into sound vibrations in skulls has yielded shocking and dangerous results. So dangerous, that he fears both the Factory and the System. He gives our hero 4 days to safeguard his data.

“Don’t be late, if you’re late, something terrible will happen.” (Stern)
“World going to fall apart?” (Fluctuate voice, more incredulous)
“In a way, yeah.”

The even chapters take place at the End of the World. A small, peaceful place. Every resident has a specific duty. Our hero is the dreamreader. He doesn’t remember how he came to be at the End of the World. There is a wall around the town. And every person’s shadow has been taken away. Our hero wants to save his. He feels incomplete without it. He feels his will to leave slipping away a little each day they are apart. Each day he is sent to the library, to read dreams from the skulls of unicorns. Each day he becomes more attached to the End of the World, and each day his shadow grows weaker.

Both of our heroes is in a race against time. But what they don’t know is that there’s more at stake than just the End of the World. Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami.
...less

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Elise

Elise rated it:

07/26/07

Read in July, 2007

I can't say much about Hard-Boiled Wonderland without reiterating what's already on the back of the book jacket. Yes, this book is a "hyperkinetic" and "relentlessly inventive" "narrative particle-accelerator." And yes, I highly recommend it.

I enjoy this read and I enjoy it more than A Wild Sheep Chase, although, same idea: a nameless protagonist leading an otherwise average life is swept into a fantastic, jarring and curious adventure (apparently ...more

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Magnus

Magnus rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

03/29/07

Read in September, 2006

I don't think I have ever read a book that that I have initially understood so little of and yet felt so strongly compelled to keep reading. This is the kind of book you wish you didn't have to put down, and, unlike Dan "Cliffhanger" Brown, Murakami grips your attention in a very good, genuine way, not in the "artificial" way that Brown does (if you know what I mean, no you probably don't, but oh well...). It took time to put the pieces in the puzzle together. But it was wort...more

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Kathleen

Kathleen rated it:

06/01/08

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Kathleen by: my brother
recommends it for: people who are into esoteric stuff

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This book, while not amazing or life-changing, is definitely full of imagination and grace. It's what Tolkien would have written if he were Japanese and on an acid trip. I applaud it for its beautiful descriptions and word usage, especially describing such minute little quirks and details. If anything, the core essence of the book is the characterization of someone who enjoys life for what it is, and not what it does. Of course the protagonist would create a world within his mind that has...more

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Tosh

Tosh rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

06/07/08

For the Murakami fan, a great essay by him in today's Guardian about writing and running. A must read for the writer and runner.

http://lifeandhealth.guardian....

Murakami is a rare type of writer for me. If one describe his novels, I would probably not be interested in them. But the thing is he is such a fantastic writer (as well as the translations) that one can't help but be ca...more

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Chanpheng

Chanpheng rated it:

07/06/07

Read in July, 2007

I left the book I was reading behind on my desk in Vientiane, so I found this unread copy of this book by Murakami in my house in Xieng Khouang. I had planned to return to Vientiane after a meeting but fate intervened again so I'm staying for a meeting on Monday, meaning lots of free reading time on the weekend. Obviously, fate was working to make sure I finally read this book. Very Murakami-esque.

The book starts off with parellal stories - one about a calcutec, like a human encoding machi...more

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megan

megan rated it:

03/21/07

Read in March, 2007

Two alternating stories with seemingly different protagonists and stories slowly merge in this early novel by experimental Japanese author Haruki Murakami (Wind-Up Bird Chronicles). In one storyline, the narrator is a computer technician expert at "shuffling" or encoding data. His ability to shuffle data has been made possible through experimental brain alterations. Called to a mysterious office building for a job, the narrator finds himself on the run from rival information agents and...more

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Dan

Dan rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

05/16/08

Read in May, 2008

I almost want to apologize for only giving this book 3 stars. If it had been written by someone who i had never read before, or if this had been my first Murakami book, maybe I would have given it four stars. As things are, i think its a three and a half.

I was telling a friend the other day why I liked Murakami so much, and the best way I could describe it was to say that he doesn't waste any words. Never do you turn the page and skim through it in a matter of seconds b/c there's alot o...more

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Peter

Peter rated it:

07/16/07

Read in January, 1997

I found this book at the Montague Book Mill in Montague, Massachusetts, over ten years ago. It was my first Murakami, and I was attracted to it not because I had heard of him, but because of the title.

In a lot ways, this book changed the course of how I read. Prior to this, I read some good stuff. My choices were influenced by my writing classes in college (we read a lot of short stories: Updike, Oates, Tim O'Brien, etc.), but the short stories really didn't capture my imagination like no...more

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Stefan

Stefan rated it:

03/24/08

Read in March, 2008

A very interesting read that feels similar to Gibson's Pattern Recognition in many ways which I can't quite pin down. It sparked my interest in the use of neural memories for encryption...based on my limited understanding of artificial neural memories and my even more limited understanding of encryption, it seems that they aren't terribly well suited, although they could be bent to the purpose. The scheme proposed in Hard-Boiled Wonderland relies more on security through obscurity than actual ...more

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Jodi

Jodi rated it:

(review of isbn 0099448785)

02/15/08

bookshelves: from-brother-s-bookshelf

Read in February, 2008

Just finished this one. So. This was the hardest Murkami book for me to get into but now that I'm done reading it, I think it's one of my favorites. I'm kindof upset with the ending but I guess he really couldn't have written it any other way.

Also, is it just me or is Murkami a type of foodie? His cooking/eating scenes are so incredibly descriptive (the way other writers describe sex or religion or something that involves satisfying the soul) that it makes me think he wrote for cooking...more