“Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.”
The Plot
The plot is not easy to explain. The genre is the sci-fi and equal part surrealism. The story has two narratives that take place simultaneously. The first narrative is called the Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the second one is called The End of the World.
The Hard-Boiled Wonderland revolves around a mid-thirties male protagonist who is a Calutec (human processor) and works for the "System" (an organisation that protects the data). He is called for a special assignment by a scientist who was a former researcher at the "System". The Scientist has an ulterior motive for hiring the Protagonist. From here entails a weird adventure that connects the protagonist to his subconscious mind.
The story revolves around how the Protagonist became a Calutec, the clashes with the "Factory" (the organisation that works against the System to steal data), and solving some of his own mysteries that answer questions he has had about himself.
The End of the World is a parallel story. It is written in the present tense (and the reason why would be a surprise that you should read it for yourself). The End of the World is a perfect world with a perfect ecosystem. It is capsuled by high walls that make it impossible to escape. The Protagonist is accepted into this world but has to leave his shadow behind in order to be a part of it. He is assigned the role of the Dreamreader. His sole task is to read dreams.
The perfection of the town mesmerises him at the same time makes him curious. This curiosity leads him to discover the mechanism of how the town functions. From this point onwards what the Dreamreader finds out and the final decision he makes leads to the climax of the story - Map of the End of the World
Strong points:
The story starts off great. It keeps you hooked and at the edge of your seat. In short, giving you the actual Murakami experience.
We see so much of Murakami in his characters especially the inclusion of jazz music. It's beautiful that you can't separate the characters from the author.
Weirdest characters I've ever read.
The climax makes the whole book worth it.
Weak points:
Murakami beats around the bush a lot.
Murakami gives a ton of extra information and description that gets tiring to read.
The story is so slow in the middle.
Honest thoughts:
The book cost me Rs. 480 which is reasonable considering Murakami's popularity and demand. But I would strongly recommend going in for a second-hand book.
Buy the book if you love reading descriptive, sci-fi narratives and a pizzazz of absurdity (a weird combination but a good one).
The only drawback the story has is that Murakami drags it before attacking us with his masterstroke.
Murakami is never the one with cliché endings. So expect the unexpected and you'll fall in love with the story. Be patient with it. Let it prove you wrong.
After Thoughts (spoiler alert):
The end of the world represents a limited world that the protagonist has created for himself; the reason why his wife left, his limited mind, and his overall happy yet miserable life. He has created limitations such as the gatekeeper, the wall, and the inescapable world in his mind. Limiting himself so much that he had trapped himself inside his own consciousness.
He stays back to find out why he has created such a world. Which I feel is something we all do. We all need the “why” we do what we do. It is our responsibility towards our own Consciousness.
Without our “why”, our soul, our memories, and our mind, we all simply exist. There will be no purpose to our existence; Neither living our life to the fullest nor dying. Caught in the "in-between" and forever trapped. By dragging out the essence of life we create "the end of the world" for ourselves.
Murakami's story endings leave you questioning a thousand things with no definitive answers. We can dive into philosophical speculation and be left with more questions than when we started out.
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