Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Title: Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Author: Haruki Murakami
Published: 2003 by Vintage, but the Japanese original came out in 1985.
Genre: "Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto" says the back cover.
Pages: 400


I bought this puppy in 2004 from Berlin, while on interrail across Europe. I did start reading it then, and got all the way to chapter 23, but for some reason never finished. So I now took it to be read on work trips. The beginning seemed a little slow and I thought about reading something else, but a few chapters into it, I was hooked.

Soooo... there's this guy who's a Calcutec, so basically he can shuffle information with his mind. And he gets a job from this old genius/professor/scientist/inventor to work on some top-secret info, and to return with the shuffled stuff or it's the end of the world. And there's the old guy's young granddaughter, who dresses in all pink. And a voracious librarian. And a two-person destruction team. And unicorn skulls. And whiskey. So much whiskey.

And there's the other world, which we get to follow every second chapter. A world that's basically just a town, surrounded by a high wall which only birds can cross. And there's no shadows there. But there are unicorns, and more unicorn skulls. And another librarian.

And it gets real confusing here and there, but the more you read the more you figure it out. Except that I completely fell off the comprehension car at around page 260 for a good while. Got mostly back on top of things after I stopped being slightly drunk with Guinness. Darn you Guinness, you and your sweet, soft taste.

And there's a lot of humour, too, subtle and not so subtle. And I'm not really doing a very good job with this one, am I? Let's just say it's a very imaginative, very addictive book, and I'm gonna learn how to drink whiskey without making faces and hating the taste so I can sip whiskey next time I read this.


""Listen. I may not be much, but I'm all I've got. Maybe you need a magnifying glass to find my face in my high school graduation photo. Maybe I haven't got any family or friends. Yes, yes, I know all that. But, strange as it may seem, I'm not entirely dissatisfied with this life. It could be because this split personality of mine has made a stand-up comedy routine of it all. I wouldn't know, would I? But whatever the reason, I feel pretty much at home with what I am. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want any unicorns behind fences.""