There is a line, kind of like a timeline but more like an umbrella, over which stretches the literary quality or esoteric substance between pulp fiction (stephen king etc) to hard philosophy (Heidegger, Nietzche etc). Now, not all pulp fiction is bad and not all phlosophical books are good obviously, and there are definitely connections between them. It seems like the best possible outcome would be a novel that combines interesting, entertaining story line with meaningful understandable philosophical content. Hardboiled Wonderland and The End of the World delivers astoninshingly well. A captivating plot that drives forward (and often sideways) to fulfill a supremely metaphysical goal. This book is a very interesting look into the human psyche and how the subconscious and conscious minds interact and what the hell they are for that matter. By no means an easy read but at the same time an enjoyable one and you really feel like you've gotten something out of it by the end even if all you're getting is a bewildered afternoon.
What I would be interested in doing would be to go through the book and pick out every literary and cultural reference and amassing them into one room. Then spending the next month going trough it all. Dozens of books, TV shows, musicians. Really quite interesting how Murakami really brings all of these thoughts together as if he were writing a paper and substantiating his arguments. He does it well though because he picks at so many well known pieces. He does what many bibliophiles do by offering insight into other books that someone might have missed or understood a different way. Interesting to think of books as a culture and a community.
Anyways, quite good and though I think I need a bit of a rest I'm definitly going to have to pick up some more of his books.
15 unicorns out of 16
Andrew
No comments:
Post a Comment