The Ending of Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland | Spoilers

WARNING. This post contains spoilers. If you want to read a spoiler free review of the book click here. If you’ve already read the book and you’re up for a discussion about its ending, carry on—

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami | Book Review

This is a spoiler-free (or at least spoiler-light) review of this book. If you’ve already read it, perhaps you’ll enjoy a discussion about its ending (look out for my second post of today).

I can’t even remember how long ago I thought ‘I should read some Murakami’ and bought this book. I didn’t read it then. I had heard that Murakami’s book are very depressing and I was a bit too scared to start. Then, a few weeks ago one of my friends suggested that we read this for our book club and I finally picked it up. I am so grateful!

In retrospect, I think my belief that this book would be depressing was wrong. It’s not uplifting, but this stems from its ‘gritty realistic’ atmosphere full of interesting philosophical musings on the concepts of memory, reality and identity rather than any down-right depressiveness.  Not unlike your average literary work, I’d argue.