A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy. (20021018)
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"His fantasies, with their easy reference to western pulp fiction and music, retain a beauty of the mind" (Guardian )
"A remarkable writer...he captures the common ache of contemporary heart and head" (Jay McInerney )
"Combines a witty sci-fi pastiche and a dream-like Utopian fantasy in two separate narratives which alternate in an interweave of precognition and deja vu" (Richard Lloyd Parry Independent )
"Here is abundant imagination at play" (Sunday Times )
"Murakami's bold willingness to go straight-over-the-top has always been a signal indication of his genius...a powerful melange of disillusioned radicalism, keen intelligence, wicked sarcasm and a general allegiance to the surreal. If Murakami is the "voice of a generation," as he is often proclaimed in Japan, then it is the generation of Thomas Pynchon and Don De Lillo" (Washington Post )
"A remarkable writer...he captures the common ache of contemporary heart and head" (Jay McInerney )
"Combines a witty sci-fi pastiche and a dream-like Utopian fantasy in two separate narratives which alternate in an interweave of precognition and deja vu" (Richard Lloyd Parry Independent )
"Here is abundant imagination at play" (Sunday Times )
"Murakami's bold willingness to go straight-over-the-top has always been a signal indication of his genius...a powerful melange of disillusioned radicalism, keen intelligence, wicked sarcasm and a general allegiance to the surreal. If Murakami is the "voice of a generation," as he is often proclaimed in Japan, then it is the generation of Thomas Pynchon and Don De Lillo" (Washington Post )
Book Description
A wildly inventive fantasy and a meditation on the many uses of the mind (20021018)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
47 of 47 people found the following review helpful
By AR
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
This is a beautiful book written in Murakami's usual lyrical style that brilliantly conveys the depths and complexities of the human consciousness. It is best described as a combination of genres, including fantasy, science-fiction and detective story, but really it is about one man's journey of self-discovery when he learns that the End of the World is near.
Murakami easily combines two stories that are full of surprises and compliment each other perfectly as the book progresses. The alternating chapters make the book easy to read and they also prove Murakami to be a skilled storyteller, as he so cleverly narrates two parallel tales. His characters are a group of striking individuals that seem at once fantastical and very real. Murakami's descriptions of a man evaluating his life and musing on what he has lost are engrossing and interesting, as well as fresh and inspired.
I loved this book and couldn't wait to start reading it again each time I put it down. I chose this book after having read another novel, Norweigan Wood, by the same author. Having read and truly loved both novels I would recommend Murakami as a brilliant and poetic storyteller with a fantastic imagination. This book is something different and definitely worth reading, even if it's not your normal type of thing!
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the fourth or fifth Murakami book I've read, and quite easily the best after Norwegian Wood.
The book switches between two stories: a wonderfully curious and imaginative adventure through an alternative future-now Japan (Hard-Boiled Wonderland); and a mysterious exploration of a walled old city (the End of the World). The two stories eventually connect in a way that causes a wonderful collision of thoughts and questions in the reader's mind, but I won't give anything away by saying anything more.
Like all good dystopias, this is thoroughly well thought-through and researched; Kafkaesque comes to mind, as does Alice in Wonderland. But this is married with Murakami's postmodernist bent and a feeling that he's having as much fun as you are. Very enjoyable, totally escapist, and you'll want to dive back into this world once you've left it.
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By L. Cato
Format:Paperback
This book is likely to have a profound effect on anyone that reads it. There are some dreams that have a bleakness about them, a sense of jepoardy and emptiness that carries right through to the next day. You wake feeling detached from the real world and sit for hours lost in your own thoughts. This book taps into that universal feeling, that world sadness that washes over us from time to time.
Murakami manages to draw you into a place that is so different from the mundane routines we inhabit and yet so familiar. This book is compelling, it is complex, it is the human psyche turned into a story. It is, above all, an amazing novel.
Murakami manages to draw you into a place that is so different from the mundane routines we inhabit and yet so familiar. This book is compelling, it is complex, it is the human psyche turned into a story. It is, above all, an amazing novel.
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4.4 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Need to be using something to follow it
Way to far out could not follow the ramblings and convoluted plot I dont mind surreal but this is to much
Published 2 months ago by Ronald Scott
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as his others
I was dissappointed in this one. not as good as his other works. :( It just didn't have the same level of human insights.
Published 8 months ago by Sparta
3.0 out of 5 stars
Straight from a Murakami lover.
Having read almost all of Murakami's other novels I didn't think anything by him could take me by surprise anymore! Read more
Published 10 months ago by Lissa
1.0 out of 5 stars
Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World
For the first time in years I must say that something must habe been wrong with this order. The thing is that I have not recieived it yet while the two other books that were coming... Read more
Published 11 months ago by fapena
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World
This was a wonderful novel, full of humour and imagination, and it takes high place among my other Murakami favourites like "A Wild Sheep Chase", it's kind-of 'sequel' "Dance,... Read more
Published 16 months ago by R. A.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why did it have to come to an end???
My favourite Murakami novel up to now, i think this guy is a fantasy master. With an ordinary recipe he keeps creating such miracles. Read more
Published 16 months ago by panosstathop
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing
This book has revived my love for the written word, from begining to end Murakami transports the reader and makes a world which is wierd as hell seem so believeable. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Spacecrab
2.0 out of 5 stars
How Given Better Average Rating Than His Other Work?
I have to agree with some of the other reviewers who did not think much of this book. It has a couple of nice touches but in general I found it dull, especially when compared to... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Paul J. Blundell
5.0 out of 5 stars
breathtakingly beautiful
A book about unicorns and shadows, set in the real world and the imaginary, that is so beautiful it makes my heart ache. Read more
Published 20 months ago by dandawsinho
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant murakami
As always, Murakami makes you think while keeping you in a dream-like state. I'm not going to try and give a big review here - I just wanted to agree with the vast majority how... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Royale
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