Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)

[Haroon]

Piyumi wrote: "Haroon wrote: "i never really got into Hard-Boiled......although i completed it, it didn't have an profound impact like Murakami's other work especially Wind-Up Bird, Kafka and 1Q84. actually maybe..."

you make me want to leave my work-station, shut my laptop, say adieu to my colleagues, rush home to my cat, assume the anatomical position on the sofa and revisit Hard-Boiled @@

[Piyumi]

Haroon wrote: "Piyumi wrote: "Haroon wrote: "i never really got into Hard-Boiled......although i completed it, it didn't have an profound impact like Murakami's other work especially Wind-Up Bird, Kafka and 1Q84...."

hehehee :) you have a cat too huh? me too :D

[Haroon]

Piyumi wrote: "Haroon wrote: "Piyumi wrote: "Haroon wrote: "i never really got into Hard-Boiled......although i completed it, it didn't have an profound impact like Murakami's other work especially Wind-Up Bird, ..."

guess that is why i so relate to Murakami and his world...notwithstanding the believe i share with many that cats are astral beings and their souls serve a purpose well beyond the ken of most....

[Piyumi]

I must confess I am new to the cats sphere :)...but its been an eye opening experience thus far. I've had dogs and they are more emotionally dependent and therefore you'd get a instant reaction from them, I believe. But with cats everything is on their terms, and hence your assertion that they are here for a purpose beyond that of any other

[Piyumi]

I would love to get Murakami's take on cats. Do you think its for the same reasons?

[Haroon]

my cat is very loving and clingy.... yes i do believe that Murakami so get's cats...he is a soul much in parallel with mine....loves cats, music, swimming and is so much of an introspective loner who still loves to engage with the human world in small doses yet captures and understands the interconnection of self with self and ultimately with all creation

[Piyumi]

I think it is because Murakami is a loner that he is able to connect with all creation as you so well put it. I too would describe myself that way, but the loner aspect worries me, so I try and come out of it as much as I can. Like the protagonist in Hard-Boiled, when he found out that his time was coming to end in the techno world or the 'real' world, he wanted to see the sun one last time, read the morning paper....there is a powerful message there.
Even reading Murakami I do it in doses, coz I can feel the introvert part of me wants to wrap itself in the moment and stay there.
I've been reading Franz Kafka too, a favorite of Murakami's....but Kafka is as in-ward withdrawn as Murakami.
I'm eager to find a balance, rather than give in to either.

[Haroon]

'You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it's all a question of balance.' - Rohinton Mistry

[Haroon]

i love that too, but then force myself to get up , dress up and show up - think Coco Chanel said that....like last night was all snuggled up with kitty and 1Q84 but made it to the gym for a swim and sauna together with absorbing some of the locker-room sweaty wisdom and philosophical insights....

[Haroon]

Yes one can see parallels with Kafka and recently read 'Metamorphosis' and was sucked into a world surreal not dissimilar to that of Murakami's. the influence of Kafka is clear and i follow in my late-dad's fingertips as i turn page-by-page of many of the literary giants he imbibed privately

[Piyumi]

Haroon wrote: "'You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it's all a question of balance.' - Rohinton Mistry"

Oh that is a lovely quote, thanks for sharing. And I think Murakami's novel try to do just that, although the protagonist in the end is tipped to pick one over the other. With this quote in mind and the end of the novel in sight, I wonder if it is the balance that Mistry speaks of here that pushes the protagonist to pick the End of the world instead of the techno world rather than the Professor's explanations.
After all where is the proof that what the Professor is saying will come to pass. There is not much evidence in the novel about the protagonist's imminent death as told by the Professor and why he believes him is not said in detail, other than his apartment getting busted.
That was a bit of a lose end for me there...

[Haroon]

Piyumi wrote: "Haroon wrote: "'You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it's all a question of balance.' - Rohinton Mistry"

At the end of the day it's about choices . We have to take responsibility for them and in the end find some balance for it to make sense so that we can learn, grow, evolve and progress....that is Mistry captures in sense that life and existence can be precarious. Murakami reaffirms that our choices shape us regardless of what others may see think or feel.....it rests within us.....

[Piyumi]

Haroon wrote: "Piyumi wrote: "Haroon wrote: "'You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it's all a question of balance.' - Rohinton Mistry"

At the end of the day it's about choices..."

Oh how insightful, well said Haroon :). I was trying to derive a complicated meaning, while you hit the nail right there

[Haroon]

i guess early morning walks and connecting with self and nature helps somewhat 😎 Have a fab one. Public holiday in South Africa today - Womans' Day......

[Piyumi]

If you don't mind I would like to pick your brain at one thing though that confounds me about Murakami's plot lines.
Why do his protagonists fantasies about sexual relations with minors or minors ends up having a sexual relation with older people in his stories?
I'm also not able to get around the amount of time Murakami spends on going to detail about the individuals physical attributes in the middle of the story.
One thing that honestly didn't sit well with me about Kafka on the Shore was Kafka's almost incest like act with the two females he encounter. He was looking for his mother and sister and then ends up in sexual acts with two females he was hoping would turn out to be his mother and sister.
I know this thread is for Hard-Boiled Wonderland, but the Kafka thread is not active.
And even in Hard-Boiled Wonderland the protagonist catches himself several times fantasying sexually about the 'pink teenager'.....

[Piyumi]

Haroon wrote: "i guess early morning walks and connecting with self and nature helps somewhat 😎 Have a fab one. Public holiday in South Africa today - Womans' Day......"

Oh is it, I'm at work ;)....I'll catch you later and have a good day yourself...incidentally yesterday was International Cat Day :D, how about that!!

[Haroon]

Yeah I believe it was 😻 But everyday is cat day and they know it...as for the earlier question on the teenage girls and older women I think the former is kinda reference to Nabakov and 'Lolita' whilst at the same time expressing a desire for eternal youth that comes with innocence and a time of zestful youth with the protagonist usually experiencing mid-life crisis of sorts together with identity and existential issues. As for the latter it is kinda Freudian with Oedipus complex coming to the party which kinda throws a curve ball to anyone reading with a Jungian eye...

[Piyumi]

Haroon wrote: "Yeah I believe it was 😻 But everyday is cat day and they know it...as for the earlier question on the teenage girls and older women I think the former is kinda reference to Nabakov and 'Lolita' whi..."

Hhhmmmm.....what you say makes sense, but I think I'll keep that aspect of his writing to one side and plod along.

[Piyumi]

Well, I finished the book :) finally.
I think in the last couple of days my usual sentiment to not finishing a book took hold of me and kept me from quickly finishing it. But today I managed to push through and once I finished it I felt a real need to just hug the protagonist here.
Murakami has a way with his writing, to get you to feel such depth of emotion, that it had a truly magnetic effect.
I'm sorry that the shadow got separated.
Not sure if all that was his own imagination.
And why are the birds free to fly over?
From all the animals I have always had an affinity to birds, just because they to me represent freedom, the fact that they don't hold down a place and are free to roam and nothing holds them down.
He ends the book with the chapter names Birds....

[Brian]

Just here to say this is probably my favorite Murakami book. It's 'less' Murakami than most of his other books, but it was captivating from start to finish and the split chapters were done even better than in his other works in my opinion (f.e. IQ84).

[Piyumi]

Brian wrote: "Just here to say this is probably my favorite Murakami book. It's 'less' Murakami than most of his other books, but it was captivating from start to finish and the split chapters were done even bet..."

Awesome :)

[Owen]

The shadow is a reference to Jung's archetype of the unconscious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_...). The birds flying over the town suggest that his isolated neurological circuit is not in fact isolated, and gives hope to his existence in the end of the world, i.e., that maybe he can grow beyond its static rules. That hope is echoed in several other sentiments, such as being able to reclaim the librarians mind, his memories, and the ability to play the accordion.

The Dostoevsky quote he includes from Brothers Karamazov is so apt: "You're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life." This quote works on several levels within the book.

There's certainly some statements here about the nature of free will and consciousness. The first story ends with the regret that he never did anything with free will, whereas the alter-ego in the second story makes the surprising decision to live on in that world, a definitive act of free will.

Murakami has also constructed a pseudo-scientific basis for heaven, or some variation of it. Given that religion is not a subject mentioned in the book, or any of his books AFAIK, perhaps this isn't an intended interpretation. But I think the idea is interesting.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog]

Piyumi wrote: "If you don't mind I would like to pick your brain at one thing though that confounds me about Murakami's plot lines.
Why do his protagonists fantasies about sexual relations with minors or minors e..."

It interests me that you have not so much as a word about the violence and the explicit killing of innocent animals. Tm me the author is asking:, How can you be so picky about sex and even sex that does not happen and ignore bloody violence that does.

Ultimately I think that book is an extended fantasy by the boy and likely none of the events happened except in his imagination.

One of histories oldest dramatic stories: Killing dad and sleeping with mom.
Freud or Oedipus Rex take your pick.

[Alan M]

The bird is a bird. The shadow is a shadow. Maybe Murakami has read Murakami and is self-referentially-self-referencing. Maybe everything ever said is bollocks. Maybe Oedipus is Freud. Maybe Dostoevsky quotes Trump. Maybe I'm taking myself too seriously. Maybe lockdown is getting to me.

The wind rustles. A cherry blossom drops. The sea. A wave. Or is it a psuedo-wave. Whoosh.

[Jack]

A new version is being released soon:
End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland: A New Translation
(Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series) Hardcover – December 10, 2024
by Haruki Murakami (Author, Foreword), Jay Rubin (Translator)

the 1990s version was translated by Alfred Birnbaum

[Jack]

I didn’t intend to become a student of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, trans Birnbaum, End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland, trans Rubin, and The City and Its Uncertain Walls, trans by Philip Gabriel.
But I have been fascinated by the two translations and the new novel.
Currently listening to the older translation by Birnbaum and comparing it to sections of the new translation by Rubin…
I think I will be doing this for a while.

[Jack]

Here is an interesting difference in the two translations of kokoro. Ted Goossen writes, “In the Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World you have an untranslatable word, kokoro, it can mean ‘mind’ or ‘heart’. Alfred Birnbaum translated it as ‘mind’ which didn’t work, but then it would have been worse if he’d translated it as ‘heart’ because we have no word like kokoro in English.”
Jay Rubin in the new translation used “heart” and it works much better for me in understanding the story. Goossen’s interview on translating Murakami is here: https://www.insidejapantours.com/blog...

[Halina]

I have the honor and the joy of being one of the beta readers for the leading Danish translator of Japanese literature. It was fascinating to witness her process around translating "The City And It's Uncertain Walls" and especially kokoro, which is as impossible to translate to Danish as it is to English. To me, it was helpful to include the much broader experiences/concepts/understanding of mind, heart, awareness and consciousness that have been part of my spiritual practice.

[Jack]

Was this Mette Holm?

[Halina]

Yes Jack, that's Mette Holm.