Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

3.5

I gotta say, after the incredible first couple of chapters, I was fully out on this book for a long stretch until the end. This is the Murakami I thought that would have matched my taste the most: surrealist sci-fi noir with a philosophical bend? I mean come on!

But a lot of it I found slow, or eye-rolling, or both. When I was younger I think I found Murakami's incessant references to music/film/lit exciting and charming; now I tend to find them a bit irritating and taste-flex-y. And I know I know - there is something to be said for the references in the Wonderland section here being indicative of the material reality of the world blah blah blah.... but whatever

I came back around in the last act of the book, and actually found it pretty moving. But still, it made me pretty nervous to revisit the other Murakami's that I thought were some of my favorites of all time