The helplessness and passivity of life are mercilessly exposed - the protagonist in “Hard-Boiled Wonderland” is merely a nameless worker in the data security industry, but after processing some key data for a professor, he is chased and tortured by various interest groups.
In “Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” meanwhile, humans retain their shadows, a darkness each must drag in an open world without the security of the wall.
Every time a student says, “I don’t have a choice but to choose this type of major and find this type of job because they promise me a secure future,” Murakami’s wall grows higher and more intimidating. Murakami is an anti-militarist, and this surreal metaphor of wall and people’s shadows perhaps reflects a real situation in the 20th century, that is, when Japanese were sold the “high wall” built by the emperor, which they followed faithfully by supporting rabid expansionism to fulfill inadequacies within themselves. Their lives are no longer about themselves but something else - the wall - which provides a tremendous sense of security and ease. They no longer have to search for what is valuable everything is given and readily made for them. The wall around the shadowless villagers exposes them completely, censoring them, absorbing their individualism and making them addicted to censorship. Shadows symbolize the colorless humanity not expressible in light shadows are the radical privacy not shareable by any means. Such perfection and tranquility terrify us - instead of a voluntary relaxation, this tranquility is being forced upon the villagers, as if happiness and calmness are nailed to their foreheads. No hatred, no conflicts and no need to exercise freedom. Compared to the fast-advancing storyline of “Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” “End of the World” proceeds with a deliberate delicacy and calmness - villagers perform their daily rituals, and the protagonist works on the reading of “old dreams.” The villagers, whose shadows have been stripped off, live a life without desire or memory in eternal tranquility.
Inside a high wall lies an inescapable village, in perpetual isolation and fixity. “The End of the World” portrays humans without humanity. “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” is Japanese writer Haruki Murakami’s first total break from realism, and many have argued that it prefigures Murakami’s unique surreal style in subsequent works like “Kafka on the Shore.” The novel features two stories in different worlds that alternate by chapter: “The End of the World” and “Hard-Boiled Wonderland.”
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