August 03, 2003
Hard Boiled Wonderland - Initial Impressions
One thing I've decided to do with this book blog is to use it for more than reviews. I'd like to also write about books while I'm reading them, as well as note books that I'm interested in reading. This post is my first try at the first of those ideas.
I believe I first became aware of Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami from one of Piro's posts over on MegaTokyo. The book supposedly was an influence for a wonderful anime series titled Haibane Renmei and so far I can already see the influence of the book on it.
So far I'm completely entranced by the book. At the moment there seem to be two different stories being told. The first takes place in (I think) the near future and has to do with this guy who 'launders numbers' and this strange old scientist he's doing work for. The second takes place in this remote village in some fantasy world. I really haven't read much about the village lately so I'm still getting a feel for that story line. I'm sure the two storylines with relate to each other, but I just haven't quite gotten far enough into it yet to see how.
One thing that has really caught me about the book so far is his writing style. There's something very intriguing in it that just draws you right in. The book starts off with one of the characters on an elevator. An elevator that is moving so slowly he can't tell if he's going up or down. And within just the first few pages I had a very vivid image of what this elevator looked like, and every scene afterwards felt the same way. Many times when reading a book I have a hard time visualizing the settings. I get a rough idea of what they look like, but it tends to be fairly nondescript. So far that has not been the case here, which is probably another reason I've found the book so enthralling.
One last note I'll make is that this is a translated work. And it has me wanting to learn to read japanese even more than before. Someday.
Posted by snooze at August 3, 2003 01:48 AM | TrackBack