A Novel Form Of Disgust

House of Leaves is just one of my favourite reads. Couldn't recommend it more.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland's my fave Murakami too ... attempted some of his other stuff but just can't be bothered to finish them ... got as far as the skinning scene in Wind-Up Bird Chronicle but then just kindof read those five pages thirty times over instead of finishing the book. Probably a silly idea, really fucked with my head for a bit.

& did anyone else think the end of Hard-boiled Wonderland was amazing, as time kindof ticks down to infinity??? Murakami just kindof matter-of-factly made all of that seem perfectly plausible. Blew my mind for days.

& did anyone else think the end of Hard-boiled Wonderland was amazing, as time kindof ticks down to infinity??? Murakami just kindof matter-of-factly made all of that seem perfectly plausible. Blew my mind for days.

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totally. not entirely certain i remember perfectly but i think its in the second to last chapter where the calcutec guy just sits down somewhere in the park or something, doing nothing, just letting the realisation of [insert spoiler to ending here] unravel in his mind and knowing he has no power over it.

almost making me well up as i type haha.

"not entirely certain i remember perfectly but i think its in the second to last chapter where the calcutec guy just sits down somewhere in the park or something, doing nothing, just letting the realisation of [insert spoiler to ending here] unravel in his mind and knowing he has no power over it."

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But doesn't he have a chance to escape which he rejects or something? I forget but I thought that he decides to accept his (to me horrible) fate in a way that I didn't find entirely plausible. I agree about the ticking down thing, though, there is always something powerful and frightening about that.

But doesn't he have a chance to escape which he rejects or something? I forget but I thought that he decides to accept his (to me horrible) fate in a way that I didn't find entirely plausible.

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trying not to ruin this for those who have not read it, but i think that applies to the alternate character in the 'end of the world' section having a choice to escape, which he avoids. as far as i remember the calcutec is told that the work he has done for the professor has an irreversible effect upon his sense of reality, which leads to what happens at the end and links both sections by being in synch with the choice which the alternate character is faced with.

for me this was breathtaking, the calcutec - who throughout the novel has done everything through choice - is simultaneously juxtaposed with the alternate - who has been made aware from the start the limitations to which he is subjected - and while both makes the contradictory decision from the other in the moment of truth, this is actually portrayed as effectively the same decision because of the way the characters have consistently counterbalanced each other.

does that make sense?

OK, but who is the alternate character? I thought that it represented the sub-conscious of the main character (Calcutec presumably, I forget) and that the scenes with that character trying to escape from the end of the world bit represent a battle interior to the main guy - his choosing not to escape from the weird place is what causes (and is equivalent to) the main character being doomed to being trapped in the end of the world.
Or maybe I just misunderstood (or, being kinder to myself, misremembered) the book.

exactly, yes.

but i was trying to give as few indicators of the conscious/subconscious distinction as i think that's where all the tensions in the first half of the book build with the gradual exposition of this fact, which makes the ultimate fall at the end so much more poignant and dramatic and effective on first read.

but hey, i like the book.

to be honest its the only one of his i've liked and finished. i read 'norwegian wood', finished it but was incredibly bored the whole time, and got a little way through 'after the quake' which i was enjoying but didn't finish it before i was asked to give it back to who i lent it from.

looked for 'giles goat-boy' in the library t'other day but no joy. that's the one that begins and ends on a platform in a train station right?

"exactly, yes."

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Phew. Thought that maybe I'd completely misunderstood everything in public again.

"but i was trying to give as few indicators..."

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Yeah, good thinking, sorry about that.

"looked for 'giles goat-boy' in the library t'other day but no joy. that's the one that begins and ends on a platform in a train station right?"

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Nah, it's about a university as a metaphor for the universe (or the world really but all the descriptions say universe) and a guy who is brought up by the goat keeper to think that he is a goat but then realises that he is a man and that there is a possibility that he may be the son of this computer that rules campus and thus have the destiny of being the saviour of campus.
Where do you live? You can borrow/have the book if you are interested. Especially if you're in London and I can give it to you - otherwise pm me your address and I'll post it (but that may take me a while to get round to it).

don't know where i got the train station idea from.

i think maybe the university metaphor would be difficult to not groan at, but the prospect of a jesus-goat from computer untimely ripp'd stands full possibility of making up for it.