Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World ( Japanese 世界 の 終 り と ハ ー ド ボ イ ル ド ・ ワ ン ダ ー ラ ン ド Sekai no owari to Hādoboirudo Wandārando ) is a fantastic novel by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami from 1985 . It is set in a grotesquely portrayed Tokyo of the near future, called Hard-Boiled Wonderland , and in a fantasy-like parallel world , the end of the world . The novel was published in 1995 by Suhrkamp Verlag in a translation by Annelie Ortmanns-Suzuki ( Das Ende der Welt) and Jürgen Stalph ( Hard-Boiled Wonderland ).

Table of contents

In the first narrative strand ( Hard-Boiled Wonderland ) the first-person narrator works as a “calculator” for the powerful data protection company “System”. In opposition is the “factory”, whose equivalent to the calculators of the system are the “semiotic”. The first-person narrator receives an order from a mysterious scientist to calculate data, and in doing so he is supposed to use an illegal procedure, known as “shuffling”. The neurophysiologist's granddaughter shows him the way to the secret, underground laboratory in a fantastic cave world below Tokyo. He walks dangerous, dark paths and is threatened by creatures living there, the so-called "black dogs". Back in his apartment, he starts the calculations - but complications arise. Together with his granddaughter, he looks for the fleeing scientist in the cave world, who now explains the background of the assignment to him. The scientist is looking for the perfect encryption and uses the subconscious (the soul or the identity of the person) in his project. He manipulated the brains of some calculators, most of which died afterwards. The first-person narrator is the only one who survived. The manipulation in the brain leads to changes in the perception of reality and the thinking of the first-person narrator.

The second thread ( The End of the World ) is about an equally nameless narrator who ends up in a strange, seemingly timeless city. The people living in the city are emotionless, have no plans for the future - they work. Everything follows a given scheme (“As it must be”), including the daily migration of the unicorns from their roost outside the city to the feeding grounds in the city. When entering the country, the narrator, like all other residents before him, has to give up his shadow, with which he gradually loses his memories of his previous life and thereby also his soul. As confused as he is at first in front of it all, just as quickly he accepts the new, sober and meaningless world.

Both narrative threads gradually explain each other - they are closely intertwined.

translation

In the Japanese original, Haruki Murakami uses the more formal pronoun watashi for the first person for the narrative thread in Hard-Boiled Wonderland , while the more intimate form boku is used in The End of the World . This stylistic form was simulated in both the English and German translation by rendering the passages in The End of the World in the present tense .

In the more recent editions, Hard-Boiled Wonderland's translator is no longer named by name at his own request, because he does not agree with the changes made by adapting to the new spelling.

Furnishing

The book contains some graphic features:

  • in front of the text is a simply drawn map of the city from the novel The End of the World . This card plays a role in this narrative thread.
  • At the end of the 11th chapter, the text is completed with a small compositional experiment.
  • In the 19th chapter a large, apparently hand-drawn “X” is printed; it occupies 10 lines.
  • In Chapter 25, two graphics illustrate the central points in the project of the scientist who has implemented an additional world in the subconscious of the first-person narrator. They show inputs, switches and an output.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jay Rubin: Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words . Vintage Books , London 2005, ISBN 978-0-09-945544-8 .