Review: Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

 

            “To tell the truth, I do not know this thing called ‘mind’, what it does or how to use it.  It is only a word I have heard.”

“The mind is nothing you use,” I say.  “The mind is just there.  It is like the wind.  You simply feel its movements.”

Murakami’s surreal imaginings deservedly earn him an international following.  He possesses the skill of making even his most fantastical ideas seem familiar: in Hard-boiled Wonderland we delve into an underground tunnel hidden in an office-block closet and discover mythical golden beasts, yet we don’t even flinch.

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The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

I finished reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle earlier today, and when I had read the final word in the final chapter, and turned the page to make sure it definitely was the last chapter, I closed the book and thought: “What on earth am I going to write about?”

I can at least start with a small taster of what you can expect to find in this novel.  Toru Okada’s life is made up of everyday incidents and domestic chores, until his cat goes missing and his wife begins spending more and more time away from home.  Strange characters seek him out and ever stranger coincidences keep occurring, until he is forced to embark on a quest to get to the root of it all.