Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
/library/hard-boiled-wonderland-and-the-end-of-the-worldI read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami · Kiel, Germany · 4/5
This book is actually two books—kind of. The chapters alternate between “Hard-Boiled Wonderland” and “End of the World”1.
In The Hard-Boiled Wonderland, we follow a Calcutec, a human data processor
who is doing an encryption assignment for a professor and finds himself in the
middle of a huge conflict between the Semiotecs, who want to steal data, as
well as INKlings, violent entities who live in the sewers and worship a fish.
The End of the World is about a man who arrives in a surreal town with high
walls, unicorns and people without a mind.
On entry, his shadow is cut off, and he’s given the job of the “Dreamreader”,
which reads dreams from skulls in the library.
I enjoyed guessing how the two stories are related, or if they even are. Both worlds and both stories are interesting in their own way, though I found myself looking forward to the next Hard-Boiled Wonderland chapter—mostly because that story has more action and suspense. The underlying concept is fascinating, and it has a few “oh snap”-moments towards the end. If you like surreal books with novel concepts, I recommend reading this one.
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The audiobook is even spoken by two people, putting more emphasis on this concept. ↩
