Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (1985)

Two disrupted lives in two very different worlds in which fantasy and reality intersect, until the two worlds begin to connect.

Book Review:  Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World consists of two alternating stories: the first, with a naive human calculator, set in the seeming reality of Hard-Boiled Wonderland, which initially is much like our world but becomes seriously different sci-fi; and the second about an amnesiac newcomer to the fanciful End of the World, a land of unicorns and dreamreaders, but with moments of human familiarity. Despite the disparate landscapes, there are a number of similarities between the two worlds: both involve a librarian, music, a unicorn skull, shadows, and both raise as many questions as they answer. The first story, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, has elements in which Raymond Chandler meets Alice in a sci-fi mashup with hints of The Maltese Falcon. At times the story set at the End of the World reminded me of The Golden Compass, (Northern Lights in the UK), by Philip Pullman (which I loved), tho Murakami's book (his fourth novel) was published years earlier. I have no idea if Pullman read this, but the similarity of certain themes was intriguing, watching how two highly creative minds worked with such ideas. In the end, I enjoyed Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World more on an intellectual than an emotional level, more as a puzzle than a tale (the map of the End of the World resembles a brain). Two good stories (which the reader prefers is a Rorschach test) with interesting and complexly interrelated structures, but I wasn't personally drawn in the way I usually am with a Murakami novel. Perhaps there wasn't enough reality initially for me to identify with (I haven't read a lot of fantasy); Harry and Hermione seemed more real to me. Then again, the protagonist(s) aren't overly emotional either. I should also note that the ending isn't easy or simple, and may be another Rorschach moment. The translation, by Alfred Birnbaum, seemed to have more than the usual number of "right word?" moments, but wasn't problematic. Still an enjoyable read, and his fourth novel is a worthy part of the Murakami canon. And it contains a great simile: "asleep like a tuna." [4 Stars]