Rating: 
Summary: creative yet convoluted
Review: This book is interesting in concept - two superficially unrelated stories which are actually deeply interconnected - however, due to either the author's writing style or the style of the translator, the work is quite convoluted and although not necessarily hard to follow, it is hard to retain. Thumbs up for creativity... too bad the style gets in the way.
Rating:
Summary: Harder, yes. That's a good thing? You'll have to judge...
Review: Think Philip K. Dick. A little Jonathan Lethem. A little Jonathan Carroll. But still thoroughly Murakami. In a style most like the Sheep novels by the same author, this one almost seems to slip out of control late in the action, but manages to tidy up better than I expected in the end. The first half and second half seem to have been written at different times, because the transition is not smooth. Other than that, this is a great Murakami book. It's not his very best work, but it's a great place to start if you are a regular Sci-Fi reader, or a magic realist. After that, the gateway to Murakami-dom is wide open...
Rating:
Summary: An Incoherent Mass of Absurdities
Review: The great thing about Harukai Murakami is his easy-to-read writing. I sped through Hard Boiled Wonderland in two sittings. The novel's peppered with many pop culture references, just about all of them Western. The view of culture Murakami apparently lays down seems trivial at times-like culture is only a laundry list of things that one knows in order to really understand the novel. I qualified my last sentence with "at times," because I think his view of culture is pretty interesting. He takes the "laundry list" of culture one step further, showing how we have come to evacuate reality and replace it with fictional narratives. Usually these are narratives we can encounter in the real world, like the movie Warlock, and others are the protagonist's absurd inventions, such as the farmer encountering the devil on a road in the Finnish countryside. I've been told some critics really hate Murakami because they think his writing's unimportant. I don't think these people give Murakami enough credit. The problem I had was making a coherent reading of the novel. What exactly does the ending mean? I'm still not sure. However, Murakami appears to have tapped into a crisis in the modern world-the demise of ideologies and the resulting individual frustrations. When the good guys are bad and vice versa, whom can we struggle against?
Rating: 
Summary: This book will turn you into a Murakami fan!!!
Review: In Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Murakami has created a reality that readers will find hard to escape from. In fact, he's created two realities where readers are drawn in by the sirens' call of Murakami's use of characterization and narrative prose. Each character is unique and likeable in some respect (even the thugs), and, interestingly, by the climax/fusing of these two stories, no true antagonist is brought into the picture. One reality is that of a number-crunching "Calcutec" who, through hypnosis, is able to process various data through his mind, encrypt it, and write it back out without any memory of the process. Unfortunately, his kind is dying out from an unexplained shutdown of the brain. Other Calcutecs who received the same operation to facilitate their careers are simply dying in their sleep from no traceable medical problems. At the center of this dilemma are an eccentric old scientist and his chubby granddaughter, the only two that can answer the data processor's questions. In fact, it seems that the professor is at the root of the problem, since he first created this complex operation. Chased by INKlings (grotesque, underworld creatures) and thugs, the protagonist must venture through Tokyo's underground tunnels to figure out the source of a unicorn skull and the purpose of his most recent data processing session. In the other, parallel reality, the protagonist resides in a high-walled medieval town, inhabited by spiritless people and golden, one-horned beasts. Stripped of his shadow, he must regain his mind and his memories, and escape back to "reality." He and his shadow conspire to map out the town and find the Wall's weakness, but they are kept apart by the Gatekeeper, who controls the beasts and the impenetrable Gate. His daily task is to read the "old dreams" contained in the skulls of beasts that have frozen throughout the winter. Both realities are inseparable. Both stories draw to an unexpected conclusion. This book will leave you wanting to read more of Murakami's work. Like the American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, Murakami will stretch your imagination by presenting stories that will leave you saying "hmm" long after you finish reading them.
Rating:
Summary: A Really Good Read
Review: Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a deceptively simple yet intricate and complex piece of metaphysical literature. It follows the life of its nameless protagonist and the bizarre sequence of events that follows after he becomes involved in a dangerous political situation. The plot rockets along at a lightening pace and dwells upon themes such as human existence and the nature of the mind, making Hard Boiled a thought provoking piece of literature as well as a great thriller. The plot revolves around the protagonist and his eventual entanglement with a brilliant scientist, who subcontracts him to do some number crunching. Turns out that the scientist held back a few details, and before long massive corporations, thugs and subterranean-dwelling creatures are pursuing the protagonist. Simultaneously, the book follows the protagonist in the End of the World, where the human mind fades away and all that is left is sterile and lifeless. Its very hard to explain, but the way the Hard Boiled Wonderland (reality) merges with the End of the World (the human subconscious) is chilling and compelling. This book is unlike any other in its class. So for a unique, thrilling and thought provoking read, definitely try Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It's fantastic.
Rating: 
Summary: SUPPOSE THE EARTH WERE NOT A SPHERE BUT
Review: ...A GIGANTIC COFFEE TABLE?" "I mean, for a guy leading a perfectly ordinary existence, how many times in the course of a lifetime would the equator be a significant factor?" This book was a somewhat difficult read. I am used to a gentler Murakami style, and this book did not adhere to that formula, which only attests to Murakami's genius, even if this book was not as appealing to me personally. The book seems to take a cue from the fantasy realm populated by books such as Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. At times the book was so far outside the lines of reality and so far into technological psychobabble and artful, creative meanderings of the writer's mind that it is positively confusing to decipher. It was indeed quite thought-provoking and at times quite vivid in creating certain feelings in the reader (for example, claustrophobia and fear in the section when the main character is wandering through underground caves with another person). The book can be fascinating, technical, murky, strange, engaging, and eccentric all at once. The use of the word "wonderland" in the title is quite fitting. Interestingly, the book points out some very obvious things which we never think about. For example, the main character is part of a life, an organization, that the average citizen knows nothing about. His life is completely a mystery, and even if he were to describe it to someone they would find him crazy. It illustrates how little we really know about other people and how cut off from experience we are. In our society we are able to see news 24 hours a day and are content thinking that we have all the facts, when in fact, we never know what is propaganda if we never seek out alternative media sources. For example. An interesting point to make is that this book is like reading two separate books. In alternating chapters, two stories are told, although one appears to be the everyday life of the narrator and the alternate chapters are of a town that is actually the narrator's unconscious mind. Because this book was a bit confusing I am not certain that my interpretation is correct nor that it is the only interpretation. In fact, I am sure that many different people could come up with infinite interpretations. As a result of experiments conducted on the narrator without his knowledge, it is clear that he will lose his conscious mind, as he knows it, and live in a world of his own creation in his mind. New memories are created by some sort of implants in his mind that bridge different parts of his brain (natural and implanted), creating a parallel world he will come to live in. It is not clear if he literally lives or dies. But it does not matter. This is a carefully crafted work that requires thought.
Rating:
Summary: SUPPOSE THE EARTH WERE NOT A SPHERE BUT A GIGANTIC COFFEE
Review: ...TABLE? "I mean, for a guy leading a perfectly ordinary existence, how many times in the course of a lifetime would the equator be a significant factor?" This book was a somewhat difficult read. I am used to a gentler Murakami style, and this book did not adhere to that formula, which only attests to Murakami's genius, even if this book was not as appealing to me personally. The book seems to take a cue from the fantasy realm populated by books such as Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. At times the book was so far outside the lines of reality and so far into technological psychobabble and artful, creative meanderings of the writer's mind that it is positively confusing to decipher. It was indeed quite thought-provoking and at times quite vivid in creating certain feelings in the reader (for example, claustrophobia and fear in the section when the main character is wandering through underground caves with another person). The book can be fascinating, technical, murky, strange, engaging, and eccentric all at once. The use of the word "wonderland" in the title is quite fitting. Interestingly, the book points out some very obvious things which we never think about. For example, the main character is part of a life, an organization, that the average citizen knows nothing about. His life is completely a mystery, and even if he were to describe it to someone they would find him crazy. It illustrates how little we really know about other people and how cut off from experience we are. In our society we are able to see news 24 hours a day and are content thinking that we have all the facts, when in fact, we never know what is propaganda if we never seek out alternative media sources. For example. An interesting point to make is that this book is like reading two separate books. In alternating chapters, two stories are told, although one appears to be the everyday life of the narrator and the alternate chapters are of a town that is actually the narrator's unconscious mind. Because this book was a bit confusing I am not certain that my interpretation is correct nor that it is the only interpretation. In fact, I am sure that many different people could come up with infinite interpretations. As a result of experiments conducted on the narrator without his knowledge, it is clear that he will lose his conscious mind, as he knows it, and live in a world of his own creation in his mind. New memories are created by some sort of implants in his mind that bridge different parts of his brain (natural and implanted), creating a parallel world he will come to live in. It is not clear if he literally lives or dies. But it does not matter. This is a carefully crafted work that requires thought.
Rating:
Summary: we like it
Review: i picked this off the bookshelf without much of an idea of what was awaiting me. kind of took a gamble on it, but I was very lucky: this guy is awesome. I have only been reading vonnegut for a year and murakami kept those juices going for me. i don't see any reason this isn't a worldwide modern classic; it certainly isn't limited to an Asian audience. i would also say that the book is very fast-paced; you won't be lagging on this one. each chapter's mirror image builds on the other, sweeping you headlong into the delusional plotline. don't let anyone spoil this for you - start reading now! dreamreader hahaha oh i want to read it again!
Rating:
Summary: A Wild Ride To The Edge Of Consciousness
Review: In this novel, Haruki Murakami, Japan's bestselling author, creates two seemingly isolated and unrelated universes and then moves back and forth between them with an flawless abruptness that leaves the reader thoroughly engrossed and gasping for air. With the turn of the first page, the reader is confronted with a worn and tattered map of a rural town surrounded by a thick wall much like the medieval towns of Europe. This map contrasts sharply with the opening of the first chapter, in which the protagonist is descending in an elevator reflecting on the sterile, efficient and advanced settings of modern society. The world Murakami introduces in Chapter One is not really modern-day Tokyo, although it is certainly modeled after that city. Computers and information figure heavily in this book and the novel's protagonist is an employee of System (the good guys), an obscure agency whose purpose is to prevent critical information from falling into the devilish hands of the sinister Factory. The protagonist himself, is a Calcutec, a human encryption device who shuffles data in his mind so that Factory's agents, the Semiotecs, will find it indecipherable. A routine assignment with an eccentric professor, however, sends Calcutec on a whirlwind of a journey that will eventually explore the very depths of his consciousness. The second world, which we first encounter in Chapter Two, is the small walled town depicted on the worn and tattered map. Here, in this idyllic place, unicorns roam in fields, inhabitants are separated from their shadows, and everyone lives without memory or mind. Each citizen is immortal and each has a specific job which he carries out for eternity. Plunged into this world of confusion, the protagonist is told that he is now the Dreamreader and it is now his job to place his hands on the skulls of dead unicorns and allow the energy inside of them to dissipate between his fingers. Murakami has divided his book into forty chapters, twenty for each universe, and he alternates between them. The styles he uses to tell the tales of each world are quite different. When in the modern world of pseudo-Tokyo, Murakami uses the past tense and lingers on the details. The story of the walled town, however, is told in the present tense and detail is eschewed for a hazy, diffuse atmosphere, as if the protagonist is suffering from both amnesia and poor eyesight. Fitting, when one considers that he is inhabiting a world where no one has the ability to even think. As this wildly original novel unfolds, we begin to feel that the two protagonists are two halves of the same person and both worlds may be nothing more than different perceptions of the same reality. At some point, we think, these two disparate worlds must collide. But with Murakami, one never knows. Until the end, that is. As with Murakami's other novels and stories, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, has a distinctly Western feel about it. The characters discuss American and European literature, Hollywood and rock music. Murakami, himself, said that "most Japanese novelists are addicted to the beauty of the language. I'd like to change that...Language is a kind of tool, an instrument to communicate." Murakami has certainly mastered the ability to communicate and he definitely brings something new to Japanese literature. His first-person perspective, his screenplay-style dialogue and his extensive use of colloquial speech all contrive to transport the reader into the world of the protagonist. Unlike more traditional authors such as Mishima and Kawabata, Murakami uses language informally, not to impress with the beauty or lyricism of his words but to communicate a sense of the protagonist to the reader. As with other Murakami novels, this book dwells on the author's signature themes of alienation and overwhelming despair that is so often a part of our impersonal, overcrowded, modern-day society. Murakami's novels are literature of the highest order, although they encompass such outlandish plots that their classification as literature might be overlooked. His themes however, always touch on the most existential problems facing society today. Therein lies Murakami's genius, or at least a part of it. He brings a voice to the voiceless individual, the one who feels in danger of being swallowed alive by the impersonal and often overwhelming reach of the information age. His protagonists, though sometimes nameless and sometimes faceless, always manage to shout into the deaf ear of the crazy, mixed-up postmodern world. And, who knows? With Murakami around, we might just work all the craziness out some day.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book I've Read in Some Time
Review: Wrought with moments of wonder and sweet sadness, a thing of great beauty which, although fantastical rings astoundingly true, Murakami's HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD will reach out to those who embrace it, touching the heart, the soul, and especially the mind.
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