Unicorn, Dislocation, Mind

The elevator continued its impossibly slow ascent. Or at least I imagined it was ascent. There was no telling for sure: it was so slow that all sense of direction simply vanished. It could have been going down for all I knew, or maybe it wasn't moving at all. But let's just assume it was going up. Merely a guess. Maybe I'd gone up twelve stories, then down three. Maybe I'd circled the globe. How would I know?

The opening paragraph (for such this is) of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami, encapsulates so much of the flavour of this unique and faintly unsettling novel in its cluster of brief sentences that it would be impossible to begin anywhere else. Here is the distant, disconnected protagonist, whose literal disorientation in the elevator mirrors his emotional detachment, and which will be echoed and amplified as the tale goes on. Here are the themes of perception, reality, and how the one can distort the other past the point of recognition. Here is the tone, of half of the book, at least: a dry-witted, casual drawl, resigned to its own bemusement and laden with half-rhetorical questions, like a movie voiceover... a noir, as will become apparent.

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a novel of two halves. In all sorts of ways. It is two stories, told in alternate chapters. Hard-boiled Wonderland is a Tokyo-set near-future detective tale in which our hero's esoteric mission goes all manner of wrong. He is a 'Calcutec', and his job is data-protection, which he performs by rearranging and encoding it as numbers in his mind, a process taking many hours. Its chapters all begin with three-fold titles, apparently-random lists (the first is "Elevator, Silence, Overweight") of concrete objects, places, and people, and/or abstract states of mind, often touching upon Western pop culture and consumer society. The significance of the items, and their connections to each other, remain inexplicable until they are encountered during the chapter (and sometimes not even then).

The End of the World plays out in an isolated, fantastical city, where the meadows are grazed by unicorns and our protagonist has a role not unlike that of a Calcutec. He, too, is a filter for information: he reads dreams from skulls stored in an old library, by staring at the skull until it glows to his altered eyes, then reading the streams of light with his fingertips. Its chapter headings are singular, unified, and much less impenetrable - "The Library", or "The Coming of Winter" - and its characters operate within a clearly-, though mysteriously-, defined network of roles and responsibilities. It is a world of contentment, of certainties, but also one in which inhabitants must surrender their shadow (and thus their memories and selfhood) as a condition of entry.

There is a map of the city at the beginning of the book, which much resembles a diagram of the human brain - and here the major concern of the novel first becomes apparent. It is some time, however, before the first explicit crossover takes place, when the hard-boiled protagonist is given a unicorn skull by his client. Events, of course, spiral into chaos from there, as he finds himself pursued by his employers and their rivals, and learns terrible truths about the procedure by which he was created a Calcutec (the explanation of which is a little laboured, unfortunately, and might have been better left in the impressionistic realm ruling the rest of the plot). He is properly sanguine about it all, as any good noir (anti)hero should be, although this does have the effect of rather distancing him from the reader, and rendering him less a full and compelling character (rather than just a vehicle for themes) than he might be; it is tricky to divine what makes a man tick when he barely seems to react to anything.

One senses, in any case, that this is all by-the-by for Murakami; his interest, here, is rooted in an exploration of the unconscious, and of the metaphorical rather than the emotional workings of the brain. The focus is upon the little details - the books read, the films referenced, the food eaten, the nail clippers given as a gift - and how they operate in the mind, stimulating, suppressing or altering memory, identity and perception. And, in so doing, how in every moment these details transform the world for the owner of that mind.

Ultimately, one story is a reflection and projection of the other, and is also happening within it - but what precisely it (and more particularly the choice made at the end) signifies is, I think, up to reader. I've read a review that suggested Hard-boiled Wonderland symbolises the flightiness and opportunity of youth, and The End of the World the settling down to responsibility and routine of middle-age. My own feeling is that entry to The End of the World denotes a surrender of idealism and vitality and imagination (ironically, it being fantastical) along with the shadow; Hard-boiled Wonderland may be harsh, but there is selfhood there (unless, um, you're a Calcutec suffering from the emotional dislocation inherent in being a Murakami hero...). YMMV.

As a novel, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is many things - deliriously experimental, swift-paced, darkly funny, charmingly odd, somewhat cold, and occasionally clumsy in its over-eager inventiveness - but it's certainly food for thought.

~~Nic

Comments

[Victoria]

I very much enjoyed "Hardboiled Wonderland..." when I read it last year. It was the first, and thus far the only, Murakami I'd read so I have no points for comparison. But re. the narrative voice of the "Hardboiled" section:

I think we talked last weekend, or the weekend before (they've kind of blurred together with me: cheese, books, cheese, books, endless chattering, ritual, pies ;-))about how it was reminiscent of that crime sub-genre (of the same name) ruled over by the likes of Raymond Chandler. And how the purpose of those narrations is to mirror the cinematic voice-over in its bluff detachment. I was wondering to what extent this was an act of conscious ventriloquism on Murakami's part or merely an exaggeration of his usual voice? Would you say that the voice in HBW&tEotW was different enough to warrant that kind of hypothesis...or is it too much like the detachment of his other characters? (If that makes any sense at all...tis early in Vicky-land... :-)

[Nic]

Probably more an exaggeration of his usual narrative voice - but, then, his narrative voice (at least to judge by what I've read thus far) could well be inspired by noir fatalism in the first place, so perhaps he's just homage-ing his influences in an appropriate setting? :-)

[Esther]

Certainly the narrative voices in the other Murakami novels I have read (and I think I have read different ones to you Nic?) seem equally as 'hard boiled'.

Though I understand that for this novel, there may be a more direct homage ie: in the title itself: novels such as 'Sputnik Sweetheart' have a more conventional 'detective' feel to them (ie: someone goes missing and the main character goes off in search of them...)and I found the narration to be much the same.

What stands out for me with HBW&tEotW is the more satisfying ending - 'Sputnik Sweetheart' remained pretty much unresolved and I could make very little sense of 'Kafka on the Shore'...

[Nic]

"for this novel, there may be a more direct homage"

Definitely, yes.

And yes, we have read different ones. Emma, if you're reading, what about _The Elephant Vanishes_? I gather that comes from a similar period of his writing to _Hard-boiled W_.

[Emma]

Hello there! I do indeed read what you guys are saying on here :o) Especially love it when you get all scathing - Vicky, "My Despair was like Clothing" was genius!

Um, I read the first story of The Elephant Vanishes and then got sidetracked and then had to return it to the library......so I can't offer much comment! The tone of the story I read was pretty similar to that of Hard Boiled W and had a really frustrating non-ending.

In Hard Boiled W I read the detached narrative as a nod to film noir voiceover, but I haven't read any other Murakami novels so don't know to what extent he's always like that. I actually didn't like the ending to HBW&tEotW, so don't know what I'd make of his more unresolved endings!

Nic, btw, I read Lions of Al-Rassan a while back - fantastic :o)

[Nic]

"I actually didn't like the ending to HBW&tEotW"

Yes, I was in two minds about it (ha!), and in someways still am.

[spoilers!]

It seems to me that there are (at least) three ways to read the ending:

1) 'Reality' is what you make it, life only has the meaning you invest in it, therefore he's just embracing a different way of seeing the world.

2) (my view) This is his cop-out (character, not author) - he's surrendering, much in keeping with his fatalism throughout the novel, to the largely inescapable; to do so, he must also give up his soul/self (as symbolised by letting his shadow - past/memories - die).

3) (shamelessly nicked froma review on Amazon) This is a good, old-fashioned reaching-maturity novel - his choice at the end represents a 'growing up', a putting away of childish things (the dramatic noir world of Wonderland, casual sex etc), and an acceptance of responsibility and committment (hence settling down with skull-librarian lady.

Even if the final one is true, I think the implication is still that one must surrender a portion of creativity and selfhood to be content and adult. How depressing...

PS yay _Lions_! :-))))

[Michael]

Hello from the future. Just finished reading this book and checking what others have said.

Just wanted to respond to Victoria's comment about Murakami reading like Raymond Chandler. Here in Japan, Murakami is also a famous translator of English language literature. Some of his major works are The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, and of course books by Raymond Chandler.

So that probably explains the similarities you felt while reading.