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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

The original translation of Murakami’s mind-bending classic

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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

By: Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum - translator
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Murakami's surreal, mind-bending masterpiece: a sci-fi pastiche and a Utopian fantasy novel ingeniously woven together.

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, post-modern manifesto. All this rolled into one rip-roaring novel, End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland 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.

'Here is abundant imagination at play.' Sunday Times

‘A remarkable writer...he captures the common ache of contemporary heart and head’ Jay McInerney

‘His fantasies, with their easy reference to western pulp fiction and music, retain a beauty of the mind’ Guardian

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

© Haruki Murakami 2001 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Magical Realism Mystery Science Fiction Fantasy Fiction Heartfelt
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What you take from this is said to be personal. Spoilers would be to its detriment, so I can only say so much.

Their world is strange to them. Comfort zones pulled out, met with anger. It's curious.to mull over why.

The action of others can leave one feeling powerless. Uncertainty takes on a new flavour when you're uncertain of yourself.

The characters are odd, mysoginistic, but believable. It's easy to share their confusion and doubt, their anger and fight.

It reminds me of Camus' L'Estrange mixed with MK Ultra. If that sounds your kind of thing, dive into Wonderland.

Surreal, odd, tantilising

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I guess the point of this book is to put you in the shoes of someone that really doesn't understand what's going on. In that regard, Murakami excels.
Apart from the main POVs, the characters are weak. Murakami normally makes up for that with an interesting hook and an ethereal setting.
Although this is interesting, I couldn't get away with it.

Try Kafka on the shore instead. Murakami got the balance right on that one.

The narrators performance was excellent though.

Huh?

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Almost finished this but after 10hours or so I had not a bloody clue what was going on so gave up. Read many of his other books but this was so far out there it beat me .

Not a clue

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