Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

The first (and only before this) Murakami book I read was 1Q84.  It was not a great book.  It had a lot of unresolved questions at the end and yet also spent a lot of time on things that didn't really matter.  It was a good 400 page book hiding in the midst of 1100 pages.  Then someone recommended Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World to me.  The title sounded interesting and I thought that I could give Murakami one more go.  Boy, am I glad I did.

The book has the unique trait of being almost two books in one.  The odd chapters are in "Hard-Boiled Wonderland" and the even numbered chapters are at "The End of the World."  It is not even clear at first how the two stories are related or even if they are at all.  But the two stories are different even in tone so it really feels like you could be reading two different books.

I read that Hard-Boiled Wonderland was slightly inspired by Raymond Chandler and I can definitely see that.  I am a fan of that style of fiction (though I have read more Dashiell Hammett and The Thin Man is great) but this takes it and mixes it with a sort of semi-futuristic experience. Also, unlike those stories, it isn't as much about detective work as it just is sort of the tone of the story is similar to those types of books.

The End of The World, on the other hand, is a subdued, slightly fantastical story.  It has several interesting concepts but there is a lot of symbolism that ties into the other story which really is probably the most interesting part.

This book has a lot of the problems that 1Q84 had: seemingly random pointless details and plot threads that don't go anywhere but this book handles it a lot better.  Possibly because it didn't have 1000 pages to get my hopes up that some of them were going places.  In this book they were slight defects, in 1Q84 they were borderline deal breakers.

I think that the part of this book that will stay with me the longest after I have read it is its discussion of consciousness and the unconscious mind and how they interact.  At the end of the book there are some great points to think on (that I would not dare to spoil here).  Suffice to say, I quite liked this book.

Overall, I would give this book a 96%.

1Q84

1Q84 piqued my attention when it first came out.  1984 was one of my favorite books that I was forced to read for school (probably no coincidence that it was the closest to science fiction) and a similar book by a well respected Japanese author sounded quite interesting.  The book hung out on my list for years; basically, I was waiting to see it in a used book store to pick it up.  Finally, one of my friends offered to loan it to me which I gratefully accepted.

The book takes place (most of it, anyway) in an alternate 1984 Japan and for the first two parts flips back and forth between two limited third person viewpoints, oddly reminiscent of Leviathan Wakes in that respect (and almost no other).  The third and final part adds a third viewpoint, whose chapters are written in a slightly more omnipotent style but still keeping the same general method.

This 1984 has a slightly different history (though honestly I know very little about recent Japanese history so I could not tell you how different other than what the book highlights) and has some magical aspects which allows the author to sculpt a much more exciting world than a period piece about 80's Japan would have been.

This book opens wide a window into a fantastical world, taking the reader on a tour of many interesting things in the world.  The problem is that this world asks a lot of questions but doesn't really give very many answers.  Lots of varying things are introduced that seem to have no bearing on the plot.  It seems almost like the author had a succession of cool ideas and tried to tie them all together with a story but realized around page 900 that there was no way that the plot could do justice to all these ideas and so just left a bunch of potential things hanging.  Perhaps this was intentional, possibly setup for a sequel or just the authors way of showing that life in the world will continue after the final page has been turned.

However, if you outlined the actual key plot points and shaved off all of the interesting world building, you end up with a not particularly exciting story.  As I described it when talking with my friend, the plot itself seemed like a story that did not really need to be told.  The world is interesting and I would read a sequel but I would hope that it picked up some of the many loose ends at the end of this book.

Note: The title of the book seems a little weird considering when/where the story takes place.  Perhaps it would make more sense if the book was 198Q.  However, the title is done this way because in Japanese 9 and Q sound similar and so it is sort of a play on words.  An equivalent English title would be 200-Too (pronounced "Two Thousand and Too" and a great name for a sequel).  Also, at 1157 pages, this book has more pages than any other book I have read cover to cover.

Overall, I would give this book a 90%.