Haruki Murakami fans discussion

Hey,

I am just finishing this book. There is so much to discuss in this book so many crazy thoughts. This idea of a life functioning on multiple planes and time scales.

I really want to get some discussions starting about the main themes in this book...

Can we get a couple group discussion questions going?

My favorite quotations to come...

a friend of mine did not like it because the transition between the different realms was really cut off, as in into odd numbered vs even numbered chapters. He felt the transition was not fluid like for instance in Wind up bird where Toru goes to the different world as if it were a continuation of his real world.
BUT, in my case, I totally enjoyed it. I so love how opposite the two realms are and more mind blowing to know that in the end, these realms are but one, his own.

Renee and Kym,

I completely agree with what you are saying. I thought the transitions between the two realms were actually really beautiful. Because for the first half of the book I felt like the two worlds were absolutely disconnected - then I started to question if maybe the granddaughter was a mirror of the librarian... However, then as the book carried on and you begin to learn more and more about the grandfathers research - watching the two worlds become similar almost not even by change in tone or anything they just start to meld into one another due to deeper understanding of the two (or one) characters.

Why do you think he chose to stay as the dreamreader and not go with the shadow? Do you think the shadow would have led him back to more time on the other track?? or was it not a possibility? It was death one both tracks, or just sticking with the dreamreading realm?

MacKenzie, my first clue to the connection of the two worlds is the unicorn skull. I knew it was something significant, I remember there was even a chapter solely to discuss it. i however wonder if the skull is part of the imprint made by grandpa scientist when he rerouted the narrator's brain or the narrator sort of adapted the idea of the skull because he saw it and his subconscious incorporated it to his dreamland.

And to answer you MacKenzie, I think he has found purpose in this dreamland which sort of lacked in his real world. For instance, he found a connection with the librarian, to simply put it, he liked her. This, in contrast to the real world where he was lonely and even if the cute grandchild offered herself, he declined. The scientist did say that it was inevitable, he would be stuck to this dreamland and to make amends to buy time for a cure, his body would be placed in cryogenic state. And I think, the shadow was the last part of his conscious state, the shadow taking the plunge meant his total surrender to this dreamworld. The plunge could have forced his will to recover and him to live in the real world normally or it meant death, at least he died with his consciousness intact.
Or maybe, this was Murakami's own version to eternal life?

This book is just amazing. There are only a few books I gotten quite into like in this one.

The ending angered me. I took it as giving up. The End of the World won him over in the end. Although, when the Shadow escaped, what could that mean? Maybe he awoke as Calculus after all? Or the Shadow is always gone and he in the End of the World is just the same like the rest of the people there.

Yes, that's just what I said.

This was one of the very few books that left me sad when I finished it. I didn't want it to end. But it made me an instant Murakami fan. I have the windup bird chronicle sitting on my bed side table as we speak. I should start reading it in a couple of weeks. There is just something about the details. The way he describes things. I will say that his books probably aren't for everyone. Much in the way that Cloud Atlas wasn't. But for those up to challenge, this book is quite fantastic.

CJ, I really loved WBC. It was my introduction to Murakami. Just a heads up, it's darker and much more cerebral than HBW. I'm not sure if you'll like it more than HBW, but it's a much more sophisticated piece of writing and well worth your time and energy. Murakami definitely grew during the ten years between those two works. That said, there was something about HBW that really stuck with me. I finished it yesterday and it's still haunting me. I'm still mulling over some of the themes and plot turns. There were definitely some curveballs here which I still have to iron out in my head.

I agree with your assessment of Murakami's voice. He engages the reader through his description, but also the relationships between the male and female characters. There's a pattern to how he builds the dynamics, but it's consistently well-executed. I think Sputnik Sweetheart is the next Murakami I'm going to tackle.

I feel you. I really wished he had jumped in. I expected him to.

When I first started reading the End of The World, I kept asking myself WTH is this and where is he going with it? It came together beautifully. I still ask myself how in the heck did he come up with this world? So very original.

*spoiler alert for those who have not finished HBW*

I wasn't quite as mystified by the ending. While, like you, I thought he would choose to escape with his shadow, it was set against both the assertion by the Professor that the loss of his mind was inevitable and also his discovery that he had control over the town. Specifically, I think he realized that the town librarian is the idealized version of the real life librarian and that he could, in effect, breathe life into her.

The part that continues to confound me is the skull glowing in his apartment. It seems to contradict the rules of the world Murakami has created. I never got the sense once the narrative coalesced that the reality/fantasy divide was ever in question in this work. Murakami borrows heavily from Kafka, but not in that way in this book. The glowing skull just rang discordant to me and I don't get what it was intended to accomplish. It reminded me of the third Matrix film when Neo, for no good reason, had supernatural powers outside of the Matrix. It just fell flat for me.

Honestly, I read this thread and couldn't find the right words to express my reaction. This was my first Murakami book. I often wonder how my original response would've been if it wasn't. This book, altered my reality. Without knowing anything about Murakami, I jumped in this face first, and it hit hard.

Emotionally, I started out confused. It took a minute to stand back, and relocate my reactions. Since, his work is so individually personal, I had to examine the reason I was feeling these emotions to actually perceive where he was going in the book.

It's a metaphysical paradox, sadly most readers don't take the time to unravel his puzzles. The combination of his stories finally converge into a wonderful collaboration. I've read it over 3 times, and STILL find missing pieces. This is a book for a second read, if not those will miss different structures. It seems to change every time I view this from every angle. It's a fine art pieces. :-)

*Spoilers, beware!*

I absolutely loved this book and the more I think about it the more I love it. The alternating stories worked perfectly together, they're masterfully intertwined, mirroring each others' themes and, at the same time, preserving their own, very distinct identity and voice.

Unlike with other Murakami novels, I liked all the characters and the relationships they establish, especially the bond between the narrator and his shadow. This world of unicorns and yokai was truly mesmerizing and only the ending was a bit of an unexpected let down at first (I was hoping he would commit suicide) but, of course, it was the only possible outcome, as the Professor forewarned. No matter how much his shadow/mind struggled to switch back to the real world, it just couldn't be. Besides, this resolution is perhaps comforting in its offering of an illusion of choice (in the next to last chapter the narrator thinks about how he never decided to do a single thing of his own free will and this thought translates into the End of the World part of his mind by his decision to not follow his shadow into the Pool).

My favorite Murakami so far.

Xandra. I thought the ending held out the possibility that the Hard-Boiled Wonderland narrator could regain consciousness. His alter ego stayed in The End of The World, but his shadow chose to go through the whirlpool to...somewhere. Maybe back to Hard-Boiled Wonderland? It reminds me of the scientist's explanation of the narrator's core consciousness earlier in the novel as a kind of self-perpetuating reality independent of life and death. A tautology, he calls it, which to me suggested the idea of a closed circuit or loop, self-perpetuating, self-affirming. Does the shadow's parting with the narrator of The End of The World break this closed circuit? Will the shadow survive the whirlpool and by extension save the narrator of Hard-Boiled Wonderland?

Of course it's only a very personal interpretation.

That's what I like about this book: so much of people's interpretations of it can be summarized by their interpretation of the ending. It ties up all the theme's masterfully and gives the choice to the reader. You could make an equally good argument for the opposite case.

@Adam: I think HBW is one of the least "magical" books by Murakami. It's closer to sci-fi than to magical realism and, except from the glowing skull in the real world, pretty much everything has a scientific explanation.

But, of course, there's also the ending that can be read differently according to our own personal preference. There are no right or wrong answers and Murakami offers us the opportunity to choose the resolution we like. Which is great.

I personally think that the narrator losing his mind is against the Professor's claims, thus inevitable and the whole escape thing was him vainly trying not to lose contact with reality. In the end, he remains trapped in the End of the World (possibly forever, unless - tiny chance - the Professor comes up with a solution), where he'll reclaim, little by little, his "real" life. The librarian says at one point that the mind is not completely lost until your shadow dies and is buried and I think this leaves open the possibility of him regaining consciousness sometime in the distant future. The jumping of the shadow into the Pool I took it simply as a metaphor of his mind being (probably forever) lost.

Just my personal take on it.

@Xandra. About the science fiction/magic realism classification. I once read an essay that I can't find now about this. I remember it called attention to a specific passage:
"I input the data-as-given into my right brain, then after converting it via a totally unrelated sign-pattern, I transfer to my left brain, which I then output as completely recorded numbers and type onto paper....Drawn, it might look something like this:"
(Then follows the child-like drawing of a brain resembling a cracked hard-boiled egg)

The author of the essay interpreted this passage as a debunking of a lot of the serious science fiction coming out at the time from such cyberpunk authors as William Gibson. That and the inexplicable scene with the skull illuminating suggest to me that Murakami isn't making as much out of the science aspect of his own novel as others do. I mean, he treats that subject with quite a bit of irreverence, which tells me his interest in the novel is much deeper than scientific explanations. The whole idea of the narrator living eternally in his mind after he has died defies logic, or at least a demonstrable scientific explanation. The science/surreal magic divide also illustrates arguably the novel's main theme: determinism versus free choice, with scientific axioms representing determinism and the narrator's meticulously constructed and highly improbable inner world representing another force that cannot be quantified or explained. Throughout the book these are juxtaposed as equal forces, even in the book's structure of alternating narrative chapters, and in the ending being unresolved.

Your interpretation of the ending is so bleak! But you make really good points that change my thinking about the ending. I have to regain my optimism for the narrator somehow.

What you're saying is really interesting, especially the passage you quoted. I'll have to agree that there's a bit of irreverence in the way Murakami deals with the science aspect. A little magic in everything is his trademark after all. Still, compared to the other books I've read by him, this one is the most logical and none of the questions hanging in the air at the end are unanswerable. Even the Professor's explanation of the End of the World and the narrator living there eternally was, in my opinion, perfectly plausible and well thought. He doesn't keep on living in his mind after his body dies - from the end of the world perspective, he never even gets that far-, it's the moment before his death (when time is divided over and over) that's eternal. Just like an uninterrupted dream. The comparison with Zeno's paradox made me really happy for some odd, geeky reason.

I know my interpretation of the ending is terribly bleak, strangely it's what works best for me. I would have found it more depressing if he jumped into the Pool, regained consciousness and lived happily ever after with the real world librarian. These pink-tainted happy endings depress the hell out of me. I'm weird that way.

Ha! Definitely agree it's the note of sadness in the ending that makes it worth savoring. And I hadn't thought of that, "The moment before his death, when time is divided over and over." But, yes, the professor gives the arrow paradox as an explanation and applies the encyclopedia wand theory to achieve the infinite in a single moment.

And come to think of it, would the narrator regaining consciousness be such a happy ending after all? In that reality he would have to endure actual death eventually. Strange how the thought of an eternal life without death seems without meaning. Ever hear the Talking Heads song "Heaven?" This book is full of paradoxes, must be why I like it so much. It's been close to a year since I last read Hard-Boiled Wonderland, but this conversation reminds me of just how staggering is Murakami's imagination.

You're right, maybe the narrator regaining consciousness wouldn't be such a bright ending after all. On the other hand, him being trapped for eternity inside his own head isn't completely depressing if you think about it. The townsfolk had a monotonous, but good life. They liked it and that's all that matters, regardless of how dreadful and meaningless this kind of existence looks from the outside. The Talking Heads song is very fitting for the End of the World story. I'm impressed that you remember the book so well after all this time, I hope my memory of it will be at least as good in a few months.

Well, I own the book so I had referred to it a little to refresh my memory of some parts. I don't know about the living forever thing, though. It seemed like they were missing something vital in The End of the World.

And I agree with what you said earlier about Hard-Boiled Wonderland being less open-ended than Murakami's other works. His works seem to have become a lot more open-ended after Dance Dance Dance. I enjoyed Wind-Up Bird and his other books in this mode, but I really enjoy the tight plotting and more direct narratives of Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and Norwegian Wood.

Hard Boiled Wonderland might very well be my favorite Murakami. It may be harder to get into than Wild Sheep Chase/ Dance Dance Dance (it was for me at least), but once it clicks it's such a great ride. And Birnbaum's translation is so rich and brilliant.

I typically don't like to actively analyse books I read and I find Murakami a great read in that I can let subconscious do the thinking while I enjoy the book.

I found an overarching sense of inevitability throughout the Hard Boiled Wonderland, a sense of the protagonist being caught in events beyond his control, complaining but lacking the spine to actually stand up to anything or always taking the easier way out. In the end, when he does make a choice, he favors inertia over action, though he does couch it with a higher aim.

I know this is kind of out of left field, but...

One thing that occurred to me multiple times as I was reading HBW was that it would make a fantastic point-and-click adventure game. Has anybody else played this type of game?

Just the way the scenarios played out, the exploration of new environments, the map-making, the talking to enigmatic characters to figure out puzzles...it's just screaming to be made into a game by LucasArts, right? :)

@John. Not familiar with the kind of game you refer to, but your comment reminded me of this quote from Murakami:

I don’t like playing video games myself, but I feel the similarity. Sometimes while I’m writing I feel I’m the designer of a video game, and at the same time, a player. I made up the program, and now I’m in the middle of it; the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. It’s a kind of detachment. A feeling of a split.

Perhaps Murakami could be brought on as adviser for the game adaptation. Ha.

Full interview here.
http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...

I just finished this for an english class. It totally reminded me of the movie Inception. Nolan says his movie was based off an original idea, but I bet he read this and subconsciously plagiarized it in his dreams...

I am about to start reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I have read reviews that claim it is one of Murakami's definite best works? What are your thoughts? No Spoiler please, Thank you :)

Have you read the reviews by people saying they couldn't stand the ending and unfinished plot lines? You could like or hate it. If you read and liked Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland, don't expect it to be like those. Murakami began a new style of writing with this book, which has more in common with Kafka on the Shore than the earlier, more coherent works. (Yes, those will seem coherent compared to Wind-Up Bird.) I recommend reading it. It has some great sections that deal with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria that draw disapproval from some Murakami fans because they're so unlike the urban stories he usually writes. But this is really great writing that he studied the historical background for while a resident novelist at Princeton college in the 90s. Have an open mind when you read it and try not to pigeon-hole Murakami as some fans do. The war sections are Murakami taking a less insular and more omniscient, objective approach to writing, narrated by a war veteran unlike the disaffected urban character he typically employs.

Adam wrote: "Have you read the reviews by people saying they couldn't stand the ending and unfinished plot lines? You could like or hate it. If you read and liked Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland, do..."
Thank you,i will be sure to approach the book with an open mind when i begin with the book,perhaps later today. i extensively introduced myself with the writings of the author through his novel Norwegian Wood. The book was a recommended introduction to his writing style and the title is also a borrowed track from the Beatles, it was a WIN WIN!

Adam wrote: "Have you read the reviews by people saying they couldn't stand the ending and unfinished plot lines? You could like or hate it. If you read and liked Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland, do..."

And the verdict is, in my opinion Wind-Up Bird > Kafka. I enjoyed the former more. I think Kafka has a very intelligent story weave throughout the storytelling. Wind-Up Bird kept me intrigued. The history lesson within the plot was interesting.

Agreed, Kafka was a wonderful book but Wind Up Bird was just so rich and varied that it almost felt like a modern epic.

If you read and liked Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland, don't expect it to be like those. Murakami began a new style of writing with this book, which has more in common with Kafka on the Shore

Would you group 1Q84 in with the style of Wind-Up Bird?

I'm wondering because I have read 1Q84 and Hard-boiled Wonderland...I loved the former, but was not very into the latter. I'm planning on trying Wind-Up Bird next, hoping it will be more like 1Q84.

I would group Wind-up Bird with 1Q84 and Wild Sheep Chase. It has the surrealistic elements but remains rooted in reality like 1Q84 and Wild Sheep.

Hard-boiled has elements of reality but rooted in the surreal.

Would you group 1Q84 in with the style of Wind-Up Bird?

Personally, I would group 1Q84 with Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but for different reasons than Jean. I see a shift in Murakami's more recent writing in which he moved away from narrative arcs and writes purely in the emotional space of the main characters.

While there are always unanswered questions in all of his novels, you can feel the structured component in Hard-Boiled Wonderland. By the time you get to Kafka and beyond, that element is gone. Reading Wind-Up, Kafka and 1Q84, I can palpably detect that Murakami is no longer putting any pressure upon himself to answer all of the questions and tie up loose ends. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but those three books work because the characters are so vibrant where Hard-Boiled works because the writing succeeds in getting you from narrative point A to point B. I felt that transition happening in Sputnik and After Dark and Kafka felt like an arrival. Full disclosure, I thought Kafka and Wind-Up were far better than 1Q84 so I think you'll like those two tremendously if 1Q84 was your favorite so far.

"Would you group 1Q84 in with the style of Wind-Up Bird?"

Haven't read 1Q84. Sorry! I've just noticed that Murakami's books have tended to get a lot more open-ended and enigmatic over the years. That's why I see a distinction between the earlier works and the later ones post-Wind Up Bird. I agree with Todd somewhat about the books moving away from narrative arcs to focus on the emotional viewpoints of the characters.

those three books work because the characters are so vibrant where Hard-Boiled works because the writing succeeds in getting you from narrative point A to point B.

Ooh, this makes me very excited to start Wind-Up! Gotta hurry up and finish the book I'm currently reading...

Hi guys! Back to HBW =). I've finished reading this book more than a year back, and I remember practically not understanding anything in the story at all (I've read quite a number of Murakami novels before this, so I was already quite familiar with his open-ended style then). A few days ago I saw this book again in a library (what an uncanny parallel to the novel!), and I suddenly got some new ideas about the book.

Not sure about you guys, but I've always wondered what the 'shadow' meant (metaphorically, I mean, like what does it mean to have a shadow, vs not having any shadow). I couldn't come up with any sufficiently meaningful answers to that question back when I was reading the novel. But here's what I think now. Objects & people in the real world all have shadows; that's what makes them real. If you take their shadows forcefully away from them, they become ghosts: nothing more than a figment of your imagination. In other words, they would cease to exist (in a certain way, at least). That's what's happening in the End of the World: the protagonist's shadow (his final link to the real world) is forcefully being removed from him.

In any case, I really like HBW =). I think as you read on, you sub-consciously become aware that both worlds actually belong to the same person, that the protagonist will inevitably go from one world into the other. It's this sense of inevitability that makes the novel so depressing (in a way), because you know that he will ultimately be trapped in the End of the World, no matter what he does (because you've already read about him and his adventures in the End of the World). And I think the novel is brilliant in this sense: Murakami very subtly lets you feel, first hand, the depressing sense of inevitability that the protagonist is going through as the story progresses.

I've read the Wind-up Bird Chronicles since my last post and I'm looking for another Murakami novel. I'm leaning toward Kafka on the Shore because the Colorless novel won't be out for a while. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Kafka on the shore is a good one!

I loved the ending.

I wonder if the skull glowing was a physical manifestation of him absorbing the librarian's mind, or pulling in memories of her into that other consciousness and bringer her into his eternity. He did leave the skull with her right?

So much of what the chubby girl and the grandfather said was a lie to get him to take one path or the other, who knows what or where that other consciousness is... Maybe that's why she's going to freeze him? So they can continue the experiment and find out where it goes later on down the road.

This was my first Murakami, and I can't wait to read more!

My favorite line in the book and the only one to make me chuckle out loud is "The girl behind the counter was prim, but bad at tying ribbons. Inexcusable."

I loved the protagonists way of making every minute detail seem important. And I didn't actually realize until the last couple chapters I didn't know anyones name.

I recently finished this book and enjoyed it immensely. I found that it was such a relaxing and fantastical read, something that I could loose my imagination in.

I favoured the narrative with the town out of the two parallel chapters, and enjoyed seeing this world becoming slowly connected to the 'future Tokyo'. The town felt all along as if it represented something rather than be an actual town, and when it became apparent that it was actually a world within the main characters mind, it all made sense, although I had a wave of disappointment because I wanted it to have been the town mentioned in the book of unicorns earlier in the plot.

it felt cathartic to read something that dealt with the mind so much, and I felt it had a philosophical viewpoint too which made it all the more worth reading.

As always though Murakami creeper me out, made me gasp and astounded me with his clever interpretation on sci-fi with this one!

My favourite book. It is completely amazing, i think i'll never going to be able of interpret every thing in this book, because it is so full of so much. I can't describe how much i'm grateful of reading this book. Thank you so much Haruki Murakami!!

Although it is hard to choose one, this has to be my favorite Murakami book. I enjoyed every minute of it and can't wait to read it again and again.

Does anyone know the significance of the birds? they seem to be very significant because they can escape the end of the world but i cant put my finger on it.

Hi there,
I've just started reading this book, so I don't want to run in spoilers reading the comments. I am hoping to come back to this thread though and join the conversation when i'm done.

Cj wrote: "I feel you. I really wished he had jumped in. I expected him to.

When I first started reading the End of The World, I kept asking myself WTH is this and where is he going with it? It came together..."
yeah i also wished he had jumped but I dont know I kinda liked the ending though

In case you guys are interested, there is an online course dedicated to the theories and philosophies that influence Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. You can find out more here: https://goo.gl/oBvTz9

Jessica wrote: "In case you guys are interested, there is an online course dedicated to the theories and philosophies that influence Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. You can find out more here: htt..."

Thanks Jessica, I checked your site and its pretty cool. I'm just about to finish Hard-Boiled Wonderland and it has truly spun me about, loving it. So much to decipher, but I am not sure if Murakami is getting me to unravel what he has written between the lines or events in my own life :D. Truly a gifted author. This is my second Murakami, I read Kafka on the Shore earlier this year and fell madly in love with Murakami's writing style, imagination bending plot lines and surreal characters.

Emma wrote: "I recently finished this book and enjoyed it immensely. I found that it was such a relaxing and fantastical read, something that I could loose my imagination in.

I favoured the narrative with the ..."

Hi Emma, I know this comment of yours have been written couple years ago, but I cannot ignore how similarly I feel to what you describe about this novel. Its as if you have taken the words right out of me. I'm about to finish reading this and came here looking t see if anyone else is discussing this amazing novel.
I too felt that "its cathartic to read something that dealt with the mind so much"....that was what hooked me on to this. Especially how we can have a world made up all by ourselves in our mind and actually live in it while reacting in the so called real world. That really spun me about, for Murakami had captured something that I felt was strange and yet very real to me. He made it normal and visceral

i never really got into Hard-Boiled......although i completed it, it didn't have an profound impact like Murakami's other work especially Wind-Up Bird, Kafka and 1Q84. actually maybe because it was so different from his other work and perhaps because it was a deep sojourn into the psyche coupled with the head-space i was in at the time - guess that explains it. i think revisiting having read a lot more Jung subsequently together with several life-experiences may change my view and experience of Hard-Boiled...

Haroon wrote: "i never really got into Hard-Boiled......although i completed it, it didn't have an profound impact like Murakami's other work especially Wind-Up Bird, Kafka and 1Q84. actually maybe because it was..."

I kinda get where you are coming at Haroon....having read Kafka and gaining an insight in to Murakami's way of thinking, Hard-Boiled at the start was not that impressive, yet as it progressed or as I got my head around the plot I started to see similarities with the protagonist, especially the world within our own mind, the head space we keep to ourselves, that space we let our autonomy run wild or not so wild. Here Murakami has the professor trick the protagonist to submerge in to a replica of the world the protagonist had made, but I found it similar to times when I close up from the real world and find solace in a world in my mind that is all of my creation. Is that real? Or is the 'real' world real? half way through my mind was doing cartwheels trying to figure out what Murakami had done and how it relates to our own existence. I'm loving it