Haruki Murakami's highly anticipated first novel in six years follows the narrator as his enduring memory of his formative teenage relationship leads him to the mysterious City, and a disruption to the barriers between the real and shadow worlds.
Where to Read
Thoughts
Maybe it’s all the Borges I’ve read but I had no issues with the shared setting of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World . Funnily enough, Murakami mentions Borges himself in the afterword:
As Jorge Luis Borges put it, there are basically a limited number of stories one writer can seriously relate in his lifetime. All we do—I think it’s fair to say—is take that limited palette of motifs, change the approach and methods as we go, and rewrite them in all sorts of ways.
This was another mystical Murakami journey and exploration of identity, albeit with many of the usual tropes significantly toned down. The protagonist contends with his youthful dreams, the existence of his Jungian shadow, and what seems to be the Gatekeeper/Law pairing from Kafka’s Before the Law . Love, love, love this book and plan to re-read. Now, to find a blueberry muffin.