hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world (haruki murakami) a review

 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (a review)

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I'm sorry, Bella. I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness (for reading another book by Haruki Murakami) because I don't deserve it. 

It's an interesting experience to read a novel by Haruki Murakami and not be desperately confused and waiting for an epiphany that never comes, or, more accurately, is about half as enlightening as you were expecting. While I was reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which is, by the way, an excellent title, I was rather disappointed by how much I understood what was going on. I thought to myself, if I have predicted the plot twist from 250 pages away, I'm quitting, and I'm suing the author. Fortuitously, the thing I was understanding was not the plot twist, and you are supposed to figure out what I figured out at the point in the book I figured it out. At least, I sure hope so. Then the ending baffled me, so it comes out to the same thing as in Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is told in two perspectives: there's a guy who works as a cryptographer against a secret organization trying to steal information and another guy who lives in a suburban town not entirely unlike Salisbury, Maryland where you ask for one thing and receive something completely different that you didn't ask for or want. Specifically, the town is surrounded by a wall, no one remembers anything, everyone is losing/has lost their mind, and the narrator wants to reunite with his shadow, but the authorities won't let him. He also can't look directly at the sun, although that's very bad for your eyes in any circumstance. The two guys' narratives are connected in a certain way, and you figure this out earlier than you feel like you should. No one has a name. This is not as confusing as you might think it would be.

This book had no plot pyramid. The same level of action was maintained throughout. Things happen, and they keep happening, and then they happen some more. And then the book is over. It's very consistent, which is probably why I could put it down for several days while I was busy with other things, like homework and prom. 

I enjoyed both female characters. I liked the pink girl because I, too, like the color pink (my blog is pink, my browser background is pink, my laptop is the pinkest color it came in, and I just now made my mouse pink to prove my point). Furthermore, we are the same age, and I aspire to be as broadly competent as she is. I liked the librarian because I, too, like food and libraries. There was a lot to relate to here. The female characters were objectified, but they always are.

The main thing I didn't love about this book was the nature of the big revelation at the end. That is, I didn't feel like there was one. Questions were answered gradually. There was no big payoff. I think I was supposed to finally understand everything that had been going on at the end, and I didn't. I think there's a metaphor about death. Maybe it isn't about death. Although I would have preferred to figure out everything I was going to figure out at the end instead of gradually throughout the book and then learning very little at the end. 

Overall, I enjoyed Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and I would recommend it to people who want to be confused in new and interesting ways.