Blurred Line

This novel contains all of the typical elements of a literary fiction novel: alternate realities, unicorns, subterranean monsters, talking shadows, and so on. Ummm....right. Obviously, this isn't quite Oprah Book Club fare. The story is actual a dual one (split-brained, if you like), alternating between the two storylines every chapter. The first follows a "data shuffler" who gets tangled up in some top secret research and has to find out what his role in it is. The second is about a man newly arrived at a town called End of the World, a place where people exist in utter tranquility at the price of having surrendered their minds. Sound like techno-thriller mixed with fantasy? Well, it is and it isn't. One blurb on the back cover describes Murakami's style like this: "hip, cynical and highly stylized, set at the juncture of cyberpunk, postmodernism, and hard-boiled detective fiction". Basically, Murakami has done something I love, which is the merging of the genre and the literary. His story, with all its examinations into what it is that makes life important, is fascinating as well as entertaining throughout. The only complaint I have is that, every so often, there seems to be something lost in translation from the original Japanese. Also, Murakami, when he's forced to infodump, doesn't do it very elegantly, so that there are a number of passages in the book that come off as clunky. However, it wasn't enough to make me stop turning the pages.

I'll leave you with another comment from the book's cover that's particularly on the mark: "Simultaneously cooler than zero and unaffectedly affecting, a hilariously funny and deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind."

I highly recommend this one. Check it out.

Tuesday's Mailbox Watch - Notta


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World This novel contains all of the typical elements of a literary fiction novel: alternate realities, unicorns, subterranean monsters, talking shadows, and so on. Ummm....right. Obviously, this isn't quite Oprah Book Club fare. The story is actual a dual one (split-brained, if you like), alternating between the two storylines every chapter. The first follows a "data shuffler" who gets tangled up in some top secret research and has to find out what his role in it is. The second is about a man newly arrived at a town called End of the World, a place where people exist in utter tranquility at the price of having surrendered their minds. Sound like techno-thriller mixed with fantasy? Well, it is and it isn't. One blurb on the back cover describes Murakami's style like this: "hip, cynical and highly stylized, set at the juncture of cyberpunk, postmodernism, and hard-boiled detective fiction". Basically, Murakami has done something I love, which is the merging of the genre and the literary. His story, with all its examinations into what it is that makes life important, is fascinating as well as entertaining throughout. The only complaint I have is that, every so often, there seems to be something lost in translation from the original Japanese. Also, Murakami, when he's forced to infodump, doesn't do it very elegantly, so that there are a number of passages in the book that come off as clunky. However, it wasn't enough to make me stop turning the pages. I'll leave you with another comment from the book's cover that's particularly on the mark: "Simultaneously cooler than zero and unaffectedly affecting, a hilariously funny and deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind." I highly recommend this one. Check it out. Tuesday's Mailbox Watch - Notta Cavan blogged at 4:02 PM \| 1 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart