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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.
Junyu To me the lack of names creates an interestingly/mysteriously/annoyingly 'dreamy' feeling. It could be that, because the big topic of the book is 'Ide…moreTo me the lack of names creates an interestingly/mysteriously/annoyingly 'dreamy' feeling. It could be that, because the big topic of the book is 'Identity'. The confusion about identity led to the separate of shadow and body in the imagery world. The character was wondering between his more sophisticated and purer self and could not make a decision until the very end. Names as a symbol of identities might be too arbitrary and simple in this case.
Getting rid of names might also help to build the structure of the book since the fact that the two 'I' were the same person was kind of revealed late in the book.(less)
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
by Haruki Murakami
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