The End of the World and Cold Wonderland - What was Haruki Murakami thinking at the age of thirty?

Haruki Murakami's novel titles always have a peculiar texture and appeal, it has hints at the content of the novel, but before opening it, it is completely impossible to deduce any clues from the title.

The most recent "Assassination of the Knight Commander", "Colorless Tasaki Sakura and His Year of Touring", and earlier "Dance, Dance, Dance", "Strange Bird Journey" are all like this.

And this early work published in 1985, "The End of the World and cold wonderland", is a typical example for me, where the end of the world is, what is cold wonderland, and what this book will say, it is completely unimaginable.

This time I finally turned over the book, and it took four or five days to read it intermittently.

Although he has long been regarded as one of the candidates for the Nobel Prize, but has achieved the commercial success of a best-selling author, Haruki Murakami can not avoid being questioned in various ways, one of the common points is that the protagonists of his novels are always men in their 30s, as if Haruki Murakami himself has stopped growing up after the age of 30, and is always looking back at the golden years of his life.

When Murakami was written, Murakami was nearly an ancient age, and the protagonist of the novel was still set in his 30s, and some people doubted whether the author could accurately depict the psychological and behavioral logic of 30 years old.

I have no intention of questioning this doubt, but this book "The End of the World and Cold Wonderland" was published in 1985, backwards a year or two, Murakami is also exactly 30 and a half years old, and the protagonist in the book is the same generation, if you want to know how The 30-something Haruki Murakami thinks, this novel should be the best choice.

In addition, yesterday I also began to read "Assassination of the Knight Commander", the main motivation is to see the 65-year-old Murakami and the 35-year-old him, in the description of the 30-something protagonist in the difference?

It is just pure curiosity, because no matter what the result is, it does not prove anything, because for those who intend to criticize, if there is no difference, it means that Murakami is standing still and has not grown, and if there is a difference, it can be said that it is indeed 65 years old and can no longer figure out the life of 30 years old. Of course, from the standpoint of praise, the reverse interpretation is still true.

Speaking of "The End of the World and the Cold Wonderland", the book is really divided into two scenes, the end of the world and the cold wonderland, which are crossed and advanced in the way of two flowers blooming and one branch each, one chapter at the end of the world, one chapter on the cold wonderland, and so on.

Cold Wonderland is the real world, specifically Tokyo, and at the end of the world is the "other world", a strange town with unicorns and different rules, but it is described by the author in great detail, from the layout of the town, ecology, the changes of the four seasons to the residents and their occupations inside, as if this is the reality, and Tokyo is a strange dream.

This cross-forward story of two worlds, but there is no sense of separation, soon after the beginning of the novel, we will begin to see some kind of connection between the two worlds, and then step by step towards the final intersection.

If you insist on dividing the novel into two categories, literature and popularity, How can Murakami Haruki's works be on the literary side, and on the literary side, his works are one of the most "easy to read", saying that good reading is not simple, but he pays great attention to the fun of the text and the details of life, so even if some deep metaphors cannot be understood for the time being, the quirks in the character shaping and interaction in the novel will still make people read with interest.

The first thing that caught my attention in the book was the appearance of the first major female character, a fat girl, and Haruki Murakami's description of a fat girl I really haven't seen anywhere else:

Outside the door was a corridor where a girl stood. The girl is young and fat, wearing a pink suit and skirt, and pink high heels on her feet. The skirt is well handmade and the texture is bright and smooth. Her face is equally glamorous...

The girl was bulging and fat. Although she is young and beautiful, she is considerably fat. The young and beautiful girl is fat, and I always feel a little strange. I walked behind her head and kept looking at her neck, wrists, legs and feet. The fat mounds of the body were all flesh, as if a layer of silent snow had fallen in the night.

And as the story progresses, the peculiarities of this fat girl will unfold one after another, in short, a god person, a character who cannot exist in reality, but similar spiritual traits will occasionally flash in some people, so bizarre but real.

Then there is "eating", murakami's books always have a lot of music and food, and most of the music he likes I am not familiar with, so my attention is always attracted by "eating".

Near the end, the protagonist and another major female character have such an angry eating, which is quite enjoyable to read:

The store is not very spacious, with only three tables and a counter that doubles as a dining table. The male attendant in the apron led us to the innermost table. The table is by the window, and the plum branches can be seen from the window.

"What to drink, is the wine good?" The girl asked.

"It's up to you."

Wine is no better than beer, I don't know much. During the time she was talking to the male waiter about the wine, I looked at the plum tree outside the window. It may not be surprising that plum trees are planted in the courtyards of Italian-style restaurants, which is always like something out of the ordinary. There may also be plum trees in Italy, and even in France there are otters. Once the wine was set, we opened the menu and studied it. Ordering is time-consuming. Start with a cold cut with shrimp salad (drizzled with strawberry juice), and then you'll have raw oysters, foie des papinis, stewed cuttlefish, creamy eggplant, and vinegar-stained male fish. I asked for pasta, and she picked out thin noodles.

"Well, how about another macaroni with fish sauce, half a piece per person?" She proposed.

"Good!" I say.

"What kind of good is the fish today?" She asked the male attendant.

"Fresh sea bass came in." The waiter said, "How about a badan bean stewed sea bass?" ”

"Okay."

"Me too." I said, "Add a spinach salad and mushroom rice." ”

"I'll add a boiled dish and fried rice with tomatoes."

"There's quite a bit of fried rice..." the waiter said worriedly.

"It's okay, I've barely eaten since yesterday morning, she has a dilated stomach." I say.

"It's like a black hole." She said.

"Got it." The male attendant said.

"After meals, ask for grape juice, lemon crisps and distilled coffee." She added.

"Me too." I say.

It took the male waiter some time to write the menu. After he left, the girl smiled and looked at my face.

"Don't you order so many things to match me?"

"I'm really hungry." I said, "I haven't been hungry to this point in a long time." ”

"Wonderful!" She said, "I don't believe in people who have small meals, and I always suspect that people are supplemented elsewhere." You say no? ”...

There was more than one cold cutle, and we ate it for a while. The taste is light and rustic, and the ingredients are fresh enough. The oysters shrink into a ball as if they had just been fished out of the seabed, with the scent of the sea on which they live.

"By the way, is the unicorn thing going well?" She asked as she peeled the oysters from its shell with a fork.

"Good value for money." I wiped the cuttlefish juice from the corners of my mouth with a napkin, "Basically over." ”

With that, I pushed the eggplant plate to her, and she turned the male fish plate around...

After the cold dish was removed, the noodles were served. Intense hunger continues. The six cold dishes left almost no trace of the hollow inside me. In a short period of time, I put quite a bit of macaroni into my stomach bag and swallowed half of the macaroni with fish sauce. After eating so much, a ray of light appeared in the darkness.

After eating pasta and waiting for the sea bass to come, we then drank wine...

We ate the sea bass, and we ate every grain of rice. The hollowness of my hunger had finally bottomed out.

"The sea bass is so fragrant!" She said contentedly.

"Cream sauces have a knack for their approach." I said, "Cut the shallots finely, mix them with the cream, and cook them carefully." A slight negligence in the taste when burning is reimbursed. ”

"Like cooking?"

"Since the nineteenth century, there has been little evolution in the cooking thing, at least that's how delicious food is done. The freshness, process, taste, and beauty of the material never evolve. ”

"The lemon crisp here is delicious," she said, "and can you still eat it?" ”

"No problem!" If it is lemon crisp, eat five.

I drank grape juice, ate lemon crisp, drank distilled coffee. The lemon puff pastry is really delicious. Dessert after a meal must be like this. Distilled coffee has a very thick texture, as if it can be held in the palm of your hand.

As soon as we threw everything into our huge hollow, the foreman chef came to greet us. We told him to eat very satisfactorily.

"Thanks for eating so much, as we can also do it worth it." The chef said, "Even in Italy, there are very few who can eat this much. ”

"Thank you." I say.

After the foreman returned to the production room, we called the male waiter and each asked for a cup of distilled coffee.

"You are the first person who can compete with me in terms of food intake and be calm." The girl said.

"You can still eat."

"I have frozen pizza and a bottle of King's whiskey at home."

"Not bad." I answered.

At this point, a meal is finished, and then the two will return to the apartment to continue drinking and eating pizza.

Really, when I read this paragraph, I was hungry to read.

In order not to spoil, so there is no mention of the main part of the novel, although it was written more than 30 years ago, but the theme of the novel treatment is actually very relevant to the present, and even more relevant than the 1985 year when the novel was published.

The relationship between man and self and society, the impact of cities and technology on people, even the shadow of artificial intelligence and big data, and of course the background of the Cold War at that time.

Looking only at the surface, this is a fantasy novel full of fantasy colors, with bizarre stories, humorous language, and character interactions full of strange tensions.

Reading deeper, a large number of metaphors run through the whole process, some are relatively simple and easy to understand, some will unconsciously sigh when they see the interpretation of others, the original can still be understood, Murakami will hardly interpret his own works, so as long as the logic is self-consistent, how to interpret is also obedient.

A very interesting book that is worth reading.