‘recently finished ‘hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world’ by murakami. this was a tip from pao, and it was really a good read. 
it’s a little confusing in the beginning, seems that there are two completely distinct stories. odd chapters are entitled ‘end of the world’, even chapters ‘hard-boiled wonderland’. i was even planning on reading all odd chapters first, and then going back for even, that’s how different the plots are. but eventually, i decided to read it like i would a normal book. well, not to say that this book is abnormal, hehe, it’s just odd in some ways. apart from the layout like i mentioned, the protagonists and characters are not named. the author uses more of characters’ profession and adjectives in addressing them.
both plots are really simple, and you don’t get confused with so many characters. the ‘end of the world’’s protagonist is a calcutec, a profession whose job is to decode data in a mind-consumming process and shuffling for an organization called the system. he was assigned to worked on an under the table assignment, which later on revealed to be a part of an experiment and he’s the only living lab rat among all calcutecs (to be a calcultec, they have to do something in your brain that allows you to decode/shuffle). meanwhile on a different world in ‘hard-boiled wonderland’, there is a dreamreader, whose job is to read dreams from unicorn skulls. this part of the novel appeared to be more fictitious ranging from the characters and ideas of shadows and minds to the setting which is a walled town (where nobody is allowed to get in and out except for the unicorn beasts).
somewhere along the middle, you’ll see a connection between these two stories. the novel was well written and surprisingly, i even enjoyed shifting from one story to the other! so you really have to read it like a normal book!
this is my first of murakami’s. it’s sci-fi surreal book, and if you fancy mind-split-schizophreniac literature and movies like a beautiful mind, the fight club, butterfly effect, cashback, and the science of sleep, among others, you’ll definitely love this novel.
mind, really is a very powerful entity of humanness. it’s so amazing and without a doubt, each of ours has the capability of becoming limitless.
