Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Haruki Murakami
Fiction M93s:E
The last surviving victim of an experiment that implanted the subjects'
heads with electrodes that decipher coded messages is the unnamed
narrator of this excellent book by Murakami, one of Japan's best-selling
novelists and winner of the prestigious Tanizaki prize. Half the
chapters are set in Tokyo, where the narrator negotiates underground
worlds populated by INKlings, dodges opponents of both sides of a raging
high-tech infowar, and engages in an affair with a beautiful librarian
with a gargantuan appetite. In alternating chapters he tries to reunite
with his mind and his shadow, from which he has been severed by the
grim, dark "replacement" consciousness implanted in him by a dotty
neurophysiologist. Both worlds share the unearthly theme of unicorn
skulls that moan and glow. Murakami's fast-paced style, full of hip
internationalism, slangy allegory, and intrigue, has been adroitly
translated.
(from publisher)
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