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| Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World |
From the opening scene in an elevator, beginning on page two, sound has already been established as a key player in the unfolding story:
"...it was dead silent. There wasn't a sound - literally not one sound - from the moment I stepped inside and the doors slid shut. Deep rivers run quiet."
"I strained to hear something, anything, but no sound reached my ears. I pressed my ear against the stainless-steel wall. Sure enough, not a sound. All I managed to leave was an outline of my ear on the cold metal. The elevator was made, apparently, of a miracle alloy that absorbed all noise. I tried whistling Danny Boy, but it come out like a dog wheezing with asthma."
It's no surprise that throughout Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World sound continues to play a vital and visceral role throughout. It's likely that anyone reading the book could find a myriad of details to indulge their particular interests. My particular geek comes in the form of how sound is represented in words, and it is here that HBWATEOTW shines brightly for me.
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