Original language:
Japanese Translated from: English
Authors: Murakami, Haruki
Translated by: Nauronaitė, Jūratė
Full translated source bibliographical description:
Murakami, Haruki. Sekai no Owari to Hādo-Boirudo Wandārando. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1985.
ISBN: 9789955232438
Published in: Vilnius
Published on: 2004
Publisher: Baltos Lankos
Two worlds. What is real and what is not? What is the reality and what is just a fruit of our subconsciousness? Novel “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” takes reader to two different worlds. The first one is Tokyo in the near future, where the information is the most important measure. The measure, that determines the future. Therefore, two companies are fighting for it. One of the companies is quasi-governmental, called the System. Calcutecs, that are working for it, are trying to save and encode the information. While the semiotecs from the other company, the Factory, are trying to steal it. The second world is a city, surrounded by the high wall. This wall is so high and perfect that only free as the wind birds can overcome it. People and even food are different in this city. All of them are missing something, something very important and unique. They are missing their shadows and the most important thing – mind, traces of which are protected by the unicorns. However, what is the wall itself protecting?
The main narrator is a divorced thirty-five years old Calcutec, whose main job is to wash and, using strings of subconsciousness, transfer information. Having received the mission, the narrator went to protect the data of an old scientist, who is researching sound removal from the surroundings. After the meeting in the laboratory, which is located in the sewerage of Tokyo, the world for the main character went upside down. Not only did he learn about the creatures called INKings, who live under the ground in metro tunnels and sewers, but also about the experiments of the System with his colleagues calcutecs. Finally, he learned about a city, existing in his subconsciousness, surrounded by a high wall city and called The End of the World.
These two worlds, these two stories explore the concept of human consciousness, subconsciousness, identity and immortality.
In 1985 “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” was awarded the Tanazaki Prize. Moreover, the “End of the World” narrative became one of the inspiration for Yoshitoshi Abe‘s manga and later anime called “Haibane Renmei”. Both works contain a city which can not be left, a wall, a river and more similar elements.