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Steve Fouse asked this question about Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World:
Has anybody got any ideas about why none the characters have names? The narrator is never named, and there are the chubby girl, the librarian(s), the Gatekeeper, and others. It may be a way of making the story's themes apply universally rather than just to specific people, but the characters are described in detail, and seem too real to be just nameless, non-specific persons.
Edgar I definitely agree with an idea that names are abolished to make an easy transition between world and make people from different stories related to ea…moreI definitely agree with an idea that names are abolished to make an easy transition between world and make people from different stories related to each other like librarian is basically the same woman and characters with name of a profession is there, in the book, just to do their job. In the same time I have a feeling that it's far beyond this, the systems mentioned in the book makes me think about Murakami himself using a first world-system, while the other two (presented in the book) are the ones HE thinks of while writing a story. And as a person thinking about himself being in a dream-like stories, writer just don't assign names to characters to make reader closer to those people in the book. It is like an inception of story inside readers head, adds fluidity and brings book's two realities closer to ours. Making me think that all the references are there for the same reason.(less)
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
by Haruki Murakami
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