The End and the Beginning by Wislawa Szymborska

Source of book: I own this.

 

I initially purchased Miracle Fair, a selection of Szymborska’s poems translated by Joanna Trzeciak, after running across one of her translations. Then, I saw a copy of Poems New and Collected, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh at a library sale for next to nothing, and figured I would grab it. 

 

Because of this, I read about half the poems in two different (and often contrasting) translations. They are recognizably the same poems, but the different takes demonstrate that translation is an art, not a science, and artistic license and taste play a role in making a translation what it is. Both editions are excellent, but if I had to pick, I would say that Trzeciak has a bit more verve and a more idiomatic turn of phrase. That said, either is good, and Szymborska’s poetry shines through despite the change of language. 

The poems tend to be fairly dark in tone, with a certain pessimism (or at least open-eyed realism) about human nature. Having lived through the Nazi occupation during World War Two, had an unhappy and brief marriage, and having become disillusioned with Communism after some initial optimism, she wrote about the real-life devastation of war and terrorism. 

 

The End and the Beginning was published in 1993. Although Szymborska’s total output was fairly low - as she said, “I have a trash can in my home” - she wrote for over 60 years, writing up until her death at age 88. And also won the Nobel Prize for literature, which was well deserved.

 

This collection of poems was so good, I really struggled to determine which to feature. Each is a gem, and there are no truly weak poems to be found. Many of her most iconic and best known poems are found in this collection. After much consideration, here are the ones I decided on. 

 

First up is this short one, which expresses my own feelings about poetry. I find that poetry has become unpopular - even with English teachers, sadly. Not coincidentally, I feel that our culture has largely lost its ability to think poetically and metaphorically, insisting all too often on literalism, empiricism, and dogmatism. Which in turn leads to difficulty in experiencing empathy, understanding nuance, or seeing things from multiple perspectives. When you are looking only for the One True Meaning™, whether in theology, politics, or interpersonal relationships, you miss the point entirely. Anyway, even the definition of poetry itself is ambiguous, and that is the truth.

 

Some Like Poetry

(Tr. Joanna Trzeciak)

 

Some -

not all, that is.

Not even the majority of all, but the minority.

Not counting school, where one must,

or the poets themselves,

there'd be maybe two such people in a thousand.

 

Like -

but one also likes chicken-noodle soup,

one likes compliments and the color blue,

one likes an old scarf,

one likes to prove one's point,

one likes to pet a dog.

 

Poetry -

but what sort of thing is poetry?

Many a shaky answer

has been given to this question.

But I do not know and do not know and hold on to it,

as to a saving banister.

 

Next up, before we get into the heavier ones, I want to take a look at a real favorite, “Sky,” and how the translations compare. First, here is the Baranczak/Cavanagh version:

 

Sky (Baranczak/Cavanagh)

 

I should have begun with this: the sky.

A window minus sill, frame, and panes.

An aperture, nothing more,

but wide open.

 

I don’t have to wait for a starry night,

I don’t have to crane my neck

to get a look at it.

I’ve got the sky behind my back, at hand, and on my eyelids.

The sky binds me tight

and sweeps me off my feet.

 

Even the highest mountains

are no closer to the sky 

than the deepest valleys.

There’s no more of it in one place 

than another. 

A mole is no less in seventh heaven 

than the owl spreading her wings.

The object that falls in an abyss

falls from sky to sky.

 

Grainy, gritty, liquid,

inflamed, or volatile

patches of sky, specks of sky,

gusts and heaps of sky.

The sky is everywhere,

even beneath your skin.

I eat the sky, I excrete the sky.

I’m a trap within a trap,

an embrace embraced,

a question answering a question.

 

Division into sky and earth - 

it’s not the proper way

to contemplate wholeness.

It simply lets me go on living

at a more exact address

where I can be reached promptly

if I’m sought.

My identifying features

are rapture and despair.

 

Compare that with the Trzeciak version:

 

Sky (Trzeciak)

 

The sky is where we should have started.

Window without a sill, without a frame, without a pane.

An opening wide open, with nothing

beyond it.

 

I don’t have to wait for a starry night,

nor crane my neck,

to look at the sky.

I have the sky at my back, close at hand and on my eyelids.

It is the sky that wraps me tight

and lifts me from beneath. 

 

The highest mountains

are no closer than the deepest 

valleys to the sky.

No place has any more of it 

than any other place.

A cloud is as ruthlessly

crushed by the sky as a grave is.

A mole is as high, sky high

as an owl beating its wings.

Whatever falls into the abyss,

falls from sky into sky. 

 

Friable, fluid, rocky,

flammable, volatile stretches

of sky, specks of sky, 

gusts of sky, heaps of sky.

Sky is omnipresent,

even in darkness under the skin. 

 

I eat the sky, I excrete the sky.

I’m a trap in a trap,

an inhabited inhabitant,

an embrace embraced,

a question that answers a question. 

 

Dividing earth and sky 

is not the right way

to think about this wholeness.

It only allows one to live 

at a more precise address -

were I to be searched for

I’d be found much faster.

My distinguishing marks

are rapture and despair. 

 

There are definitely differences, although the poem is the same. I am curious about why the Trzeciak version has two additional lines? Maybe the poet left two different manuscripts? In either form, this is a stunningly beautiful poem, and one that grabbed my attention at the first line. 

 

The next one I want to feature is really dark, but so very perceptive. Right now, we are living through a time where hatred has had a resurgence. Although the specifics of the American version of hate are unique, at the core, hatred is a human value, a human trait, and as such, it is universal. Szymborska expresses the sameness to hatred and its key features so perfectly in this poem. I am going with the Trzeciak version here. 

 

Hatred

 

Look how spry it still is,

how well it holds up:

hatred, in our century.

How lithely it takes high hurdles.

How easy for it to pounce, to seize.

 

It is not like other feelings.

Both older and younger than they are.

It alone gives birth to causes

which rouse it to life.

If it sleeps, it’s never for eternity.

Insomnia doesn’t sap its strength - it boosts it.

 

Religion or no religion - 

as long as it kneels at the start

Motherland or fatherland -

as long as it’s in the race.

Even justice is good enough to start with.

Hatred. Hatred.

The grimace of love’s ecstasy

twists its face.

 

Oh, those other feelings,

so sickly and sluggish. 

Since when could brotherhood

count on milling crowds?

Was compassion ever first across the finish line?

How many followers does doubt command?

Only hatred commands, for hatred’s got it down.

 

Smart, able, hardworking.

Need we say how many songs it has written?

How many pages of history it has numbered?

How many human carpets it has unrolled 

over how may plazas and stadiums?

 

Let’s face it:

Hatred can create beauty.

Marvelous are its fire-glows, in deep night.

Clouds of smoke most beautiful, at rosy dawn.

It’s hard to deny ruins their pathos

and not to see bawdy humor 

in the stout column poking out of them.

 

It is a master of contrast 

between clatter and silence,

red blood and white snow.

Above all the image of a clean-shaven torturer

standing over his defiled victim

never bores it. 

 

It is always ready for new tasks.

If it has to wait, it waits.

They say hatred is blind. Blind?

With eyes as sharp as a sniper’s,

it looks bravely into the future

alone. 

 

That is devastating. Equally poignant is the title poem of the collection, which is the one I discovered first. It dovetails perfectly with “Hatred,” because it describes the aftermath of the logical result of all that hate - the devastation of war. Again, I am using the Trzeciak translation, because that was how I first read it. 

 

The End and the Beginning

 

After every war

someone has to clean up.

Things won’t 

straighten themselves up, after all.

 

Someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road, 

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass.

 

Someone has to get mired

in scum and ashes,

sofa springs,

splintered glass,

and bloody rags.

 

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall,

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

 

Photogenic it’s not,

and takes years.

All the cameras have left 

for another war.

 

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged 

from rolling them up.

 

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens 

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby 

starting to mill about

who will find it dull. 

 

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths 

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

 

Those who knew 

what was going on here

must make way for

those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

 

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds. 

 

It is impossible to read this poem without thinking of Ukraine, and the incredible task of digging out they will have in the future, no matter what happens. It is also a reminder that while a just war is possible, it is only possible on one side, and often not even on one. All wars are unjust in some way, and all wars cause tremendous human suffering. 

 

There are a few poems I won’t quote in their entirety, but wanted to mention some lines that were amazing. 

 

The first one is from “The Real World,” a musing on the nature of reality and dreams. One stanza in particular blew my mind. 

 

Without us dreams couldn’t exist.

The one on whom the real world depends

is still unknown,

and the products of his insomnia 

are available to anyone 

who wakes up. 

 

Another one is from “One Version of Events,” which is a bit of an existential trip, and well worth reading. The line, though, really struck me. 

 

Each of us wished to have a homeland

free of neighbors

and to live his entire life

in the intervals between wars.

 

The last two poems I want to feature here are powerful musings on existence and how we experience it. Both are found only in the Baranczak and Cavanagh version. I’d say more, but I think they speak for themselves.

 

Nothing’s a Gift

 

Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.

I’m drowning in debts up to my ears.

I’ll have to pay for myself

with my self,

give up my life for my life.

 

Here’s how it’s arranged: 

The heart can be repossessed,

the liver, too,

and each single finger and toe.

 

Too late to tear up the terms,

my debts will be repaid,

and I’ll be fleeced,

or, more precisely, flayed. 

 

I move about the planet

in a crush of other debtors.

Some are saddled with the burden

of paying off their wings.

Others must, willy-nilly,

account for every leaf.

 

Every tissue in us lies

on the debit side.

Not a tentacle or tendril

is for keeps. 

 

The inventory, infinitely detailed,

implies we’ll be left

not just empty-handed

but handless, too.

 

I can’t remember

where, when, and why

I let someone open

this account in my name.

 

We call the protest against this

the soul.

And it’s the only item 

not included on the list. 

 

That last stanza - is a better ending even possible? And finally:

 

We’re Extremely Fortunate

 

We’re extremely fortunate

not to know precisely

the kind of world we live in.

 

One would have

to live a long, long time,

unquestionably longer

than the world itself.

 

Get to know other worlds, 

if only for comparison.

 

Rise above the flesh,

which only really knows

how to obstruct

and make trouble.

 

For the sake of research,

the big picture

and definitive conclusions,

one would have to transcend time,

in which everything scurries and whirls.

 

From that perspective,

one might as well bid farewell

to incidents and details.

 

The counting of weekdays

would inevitably seem to be a senseless activity;

 

dropping letters in the mailbox

a whim of foolish youth;

 

the sign “No Walking on the Grass”

a symptom of lunacy. 

 

I can recommend either of these two versions, which appear to be the most readily available here in the US. I enjoyed comparing the different approaches to the poems by the translators. Read, enjoy, and contemplate the mysteries of existence. 

The Old Country by Sholem Aleichem

Source of book: I own this.

 

Tradition! 

 

As a kid, our main babysitter was my uncle, who in addition to taking us to the beach and stuff like that, used the opportunity to corrupt our young minds with the very best movies. Peter Sellers, for example. But also a few classic musicals, which is how I became familiar with The Sound of Music, The Music Man, and, most often, Fiddler on the Roof. Classics all. 

 

Fiddler on the Roof, however, stands out as a most unusual sort of musical, one that was incredibly risky. After all, the ending is tragic yet hopeful, there is no one romantic storyline, and it is a tale about, of all things, Jews in Eastern Europe. And yet, it is thoroughly compelling, and has remained one of the most popular musicals of all time. (A similar thing has happened with Hamilton, a puzzling concept on paper, but superb in its execution.) 

 

Ask most people, however, and they will have no idea where Fiddler on the Roof originated. Who conceived of the exuberant milkman Tevye, the village, and the panoply of characters that make the musical so magic? 

 

The answer to that question is: Sholem Aleichem. 

 

Who? 

 Sholem Aleichem's signature, from the book cover.

Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich - often referred to as the “Jewish Mark Twain” -  was born in 1859, in what is now Ukraine, but was part of the Russian Empire at that time. (And later became part of the USSR.) In what would become the pattern of his own life, his father was originally a prosperous merchant, then lost it all. Solomon tutored a rich man’s daughter, then eloped with her, much to the consternation of her parents. However, she ended up inheriting their fortune after their deaths, which he subsequently lost in stock speculation. At that point, his options were teaching and writing, both of which he did. His writing was under the pen name of “Sholem Aleichem,” the Jewish greeting “Peace Upon You.” 

 

Later, in 1905, he fled the pogroms against the Jews that were sweeping the Russian Empire (and indeed, much of Europe), landing in New York City. By that time, he was becoming established as a writer, playwright, and lecturer. For the most part, his reputation was as a writer in Yiddish, and the market for his writing and lectures was the Jewish Diaspora. Later, however, his works were translated into various languages, and he gained an international reputation. 

 

So, how did I know all about Aleichem? Well, I have a few connections. First of all, my step-grandmother was Jewish, although not religious. She was from New York originally, although she worked as a Librarian in Los Angeles for decades. She would sprinkle a bit of Yiddish in here and there, so I was familiar with at least a few dozen words. 

 

Later, I discovered the works of Leo Rosten, particularly the hilarious Hyman Kaplan stories. This in turn led to reading The Joys of Yiddish, which is both a lexicon and a collection of humor and culture. I highly recommend it.

 

Rosten referred often to Aleichem and even paraphrased some of the stories, and so I became familiar with him and his humor. I also startled a few Jewish friends and acquaintances when I understood enough Yiddish to get by. Hey, I aspire to be a mensch, not a shlemiel, what can I say? 

 

Aleichem wrote a large number of stories about Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, only some of which have made it into English translation, from what I can tell. The Tevye stories formed the basis for Fiddler on the Roof, but they are actually not as easy to find as I expected. More on that later. The most common collection is the one that I found at a used book store in 2021, The Old Country, which is translated by Julius & Frances Butwin, and published in 1949. 

 

Julius passed soon before the project was completed, so it was left to Frances to write the introduction. Her explanation as to how they selected the stories was enlightening. Only one of the Tevye stories makes it into the collection, and she explained that they were the most difficult to translate. Most of the humor comes from the fact that Tevye is always quoting the various Jewish holy books. Or rather, misquoting, butchering, and outright fabricating. In the story included, the primary sources was the Torah, which, as a Christian, I am pretty familiar with. Which meant that the misquotes and misattributions were laugh-out-loud hilarious. But apparently a lot more of the stories feature that Talmud and other secondary works, which the average Gentile probably would not find as familiar. I wonder if that might be less the case 70 years later, and I myself probably would find them amusing. 

 

Whatever the case, the rest of the stories run the gamut from broad comedy to heartbreaking tragedy, often both, and everything in between. There is the story of the two twin brothers who take to feuding over their seats in the synagogue. There is promising young man who breaks his parents’ hearts by deconverting in order to gain access to education and employment. There is the touching story of a young boy trying to impress his female best friend with tall tales. There is the harrowing story of the man desperate to get home for Passover, who risks his life crossing a raging river. There is the man who tried to buy a she-goat, but keeps coming home with a he-goat…or is it a demon? There is even a story about the Dreyfus Affair. These are just a few. 

 

Because the stories are self-contained wholes, trying to duplicate the humor is impossible. In many cases, the whole story is necessary in order to get the punchline. Or the twist of the knife as the case may be. 

 

I did want to at least mention a few things. There are a few stories set around Purim, the celebration of the story of Esther and the deliverance of the Jews from the Persian oppressor, Haman. Because of this, there are loving descriptions of hamantaschen, those sweet pastries overflowing with fig or poppy seeds. For those interested in experiencing them, I recommend Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles. Come to think of it, Aleichem wrote a lot about food in these stories. I need to plan a trip to Canter’s again now.  

 

One story that stood out as both hilarious and one with a really sharp edge was “Eternal Life,” the story of a schlimazel who gets roped into taking a corpse to the town for burial during horrid weather. For doing so, he is promised “eternal life.” The townsfolk, however, are less interested in that than in getting actual hard cash. And they won’t even let the poor guy in. What is interesting is his response to the unwelcoming innkeeper:

 

“What is this town anyway, another Sodom?”

 

Hmm, isn’t that interesting? We Christians forget that the idea that Sodom’s sin was homosexuality is relatively new, and not in any way supported by scripture. Ezekiel explains it pretty clearly:

 

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.

 

It wasn’t until the dying throes of the Roman Empire that a post-Constantine emperor, knowing he had to deflect attention away from his own failures, scapegoated gay people, leading to widespread persecution. 

 

Aleichem writes in this story from the original Jewish understanding of the sin of Sodom - which dates back 3000 years. Sodom turned its back on strangers, hoarding their own wealth at the expense of others. 

 

The story also gets another dig in, this one against religious manipulators. 

 

[F]from that morning on I have despised all those overly pious people who pray out loud and beat their breasts and bow low and make crazy motions. I have hated those holy ones who talk with God all the time, who pretend to serve Him, and do whatever they want, all in His name! True, you might say that those modern irreligious people nowadays are no better and may even be worse than the old-timers with their false piety. But they’re not so revolting. At least they don’t pretend to be on speaking terms with God. 

 

Whatever this might have looked like to Aleichem in the late 1800s, it has become clear in our own modern society that the “irreligious” people have a hell of a lot more compassion and human decency than those who pretend to be on speaking terms with God. 

 

I’ll just briefly mention two more stories, both of them about holidays. “A Country Passover” has an incident in which a Jewish boy is best friends with a Gentile boy, but during Passover, they are not allowed to be around each other, because the Gentiles believe the “blood libel.” That is, that Jews need the blood of a Gentile child to perform their Passover rites.

 

(By the way, the QAnon conspiracy theory is one modern version of the Blood Libel. The claim that LGBTQ people are “groomers” is another. Both stigmatize and slander a group with accusations of child harm.) 

 

The final one is “The Day Before Yom Kippur,” and is quite amusing. On that day, everyone goes door to door, and asks forgiveness for any wrongs, with “If anything I have said to you during the year offended you, I want to apologize, and wish you a happy New Year.” The person is then treated to a piece of holiday torte. In the story, three not-at-all-beloved characters make the rounds, but tradition is tradition, and however reluctantly, the holiday torte is shared. 

 

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book. I thought the translation was good, neither too breezy nor self-consciously archaic. It reads naturally and easily. My only wish is that there were more of the stories - but I guess maybe this means I need to read my three volumes of the other great Yiddish writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, the writer who kicked off this blog back in the day. 

 

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

 

Source of book: Borrowed from a friend.

 

Murakami is weird. And not just weird, weird in many different ways and in different genres. For example, Norwegian Wood is kind of a straight-up realistic love story and love tragedy. But still weird in many places. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is even weirder - a sprawling work with magical realism and flashbacks to the war against Russia in Manchuria. The weirdness wasn’t really explained, either, it just was. So much about that book was left in mystery. Which is not a criticism - if anything, part of the appeal was that it never over-explained. 

 

So, going into Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, I wasn’t sure what to expect, except that it would be weird. And it was. 

 All the images in the collage will make sense once you have read the book...

How to describe it? Well, there are two storylines which alternate chapters - a total of 20 chapters for each story. They are connected, although how and why does not become apparent until the last quarter or so of the book. 

 

The first thread is the “Hard-Boiled Wonderland” - a gritty cyberpunk thriller about a man who works as a human encoder for the corporate “white hat” side of information security. The basic idea being that every code is crackable except the one that nobody understands how the “black box” encoder works, and the best black box device is the human subconscious. 

 

The second, “The End of the World,” takes place in a surreal, fantasy-like place, where unicorns are part of some essential function of a walled town, and nobody has a mind anymore. 

 

None of the characters in the book have names. They get occupations or descriptions, like “The Librarian,” or “The Old Man.” There is a general sense that even though these are individuals, we can never fully know who they are. 

 

In both story threads, the narrator spends much of the book trying to figure out what is going on. The “Calcutec” narrator is summoned to a mysterious assignment from a possibly insane, possibly malevolent scientist, has his apartment torn apart by gangsters, and is starting to have weird visions of an imaginary place. The narrator in The End of the World has recently arrived, and has to figure out what the hell is going on, as he knows - and indeed remembers - next to nothing. 

 

Okay, so, that’s a bit of a setup. But trying to describe just how weird this book is is futile. It has to be experienced, not described. It also goes to some very interesting places. As with other Murakami books, it is never just - or even primarily - about the surface plot. Human psychology and human society are always the deeper narrative. In this case, the author explores the idea of identity. What actually makes us individuals? Is free will real? Is a loss of memory a loss of self? And a lot more besides. 

 

Oh, and plenty of thinking about the meaning of mortality, and a concept of eternity existing in the finity of the mind. 

 

I really should also add, quite funny – the humor is often dark, but wicked and witty.

 

A few passages stood out in the book, starting with this one about the narrator’s experience being trained (and modified) for his job as a Calcutec.) 

 

“One more point,” they intoned in solemn chorus. “Properly speaking, should any individual ever have exact, clear knowledge of his own core consciousness?” 

“I wouldn’t know,” I said.

“Nor would we,” said the scientists. “Such questions are, as they say, beyond science.”

 

Related is the explanation the narrator finally gets from the mad scientist. 

 

“Each individual behaves on the basis of his individual mnemonic makeup. No two human beings are alike; it’s a question of identity. And what is identity? The cognitive system arisin’ from the aggregate memories of that individual’s past experiences. The layman’s word for this is the mind. No two human beings have the same mind. At the same time, human beings have almost no grasp of their own cognitive systems. I don’t, you don’t, nobody does. All we know - or think we know - is but a fraction of the whole cake. A mere tip of the icing.” 

 

And also:

 

“Pursue this much further and we enter into theological issues. The bottom line here, if you want t’call it that, is whether human actions are plotted out in advance by the Divine, or self-initiated beginnin’ to end. Of course, ever since the modern age, science has stressed the physiological spontaneity of the human organism. But soon’s we start askin’ just what this spontaneity is, nobody can come up with a decent answer. Nobody’s got the keys to t’the elephant factory inside us. Freud and Jung and all the rest of them published their theories, but all they did was t’invent a lot of jargon t’get people talkin’. Gave mental phenomena a little scholastic color.”

 

Later, as the narrator and the scientist’s granddaughter escape the sewers below Tokyo (it’s…a long story), he has a fascinating thought about religion.

 

I was swimming. Orpheus ferried across the Styx to the Land of the Dead. All the varieties of religious experience in the world, yet when it comes to death, it all boils down to the same thing. At least Orpheus didn’t have to balance laundry on his head. The ancient Greeks had style.

 

There is another philosophical idea housed in an episode at The End of the World. A group of men are out digging a hole while it snows. The Colonel explains this to the narrator. 

 

“Tell me, what is that hole for?” I ask the Colonel.

“Nothing at all,” he says. “They dig for the sake of digging. So in that sense, it is a very pure hole.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It is simple enough. They dig their hole because they want to dig. Nothing more or less.”

 I think about the pure hole and all it might mean.

“They dig holes from time to time,” the Colonel explains. “It is probably for them what chess is for me. It has no special meaning, does not transport them anywhere. All of us dig at our own pure holes. We have nothing to achieve by our activities, nowhere to get to. Is there not something marvelous about this? We hurt no one and no one gets hurt. No victory, no defeat.” 

 

I am still thinking about this spin on human futility and the possible meaninglessness of most of our existence. The Colonel makes it into an admirable and positive thing. 

 

I’ll end with another bleak idea, which the narrator considers near the end of the book. He has enjoyed a lovely night and day with The Librarian, mutual sex and pleasure and time together. But he knows his fate, yet chooses not to tell her. 

 

Had I done the right thing by not telling her? Maybe not. Who on earth wanted the right thing anyway? Yet what meaning could there be if nothing was right? If nothing was fair?

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek. 

 

Humans are weird about this, right? Nothing in our experience of nature or the universe involves “fairness.” Things just are, whether they are fair or not. It is only within human society that the concept has any meaning, and there it is simply the behavioral relationships requiring mutuality. Yet we apply this to everything, from the “unfairness” of a young kid dying of cancer to whether the traffic lights go our way on the way home from work. I get the feeling that these are the kinds of things that rattle around in Murakami’s brain all the time, and end up making it into his books. 

 

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World was published in 1985, although it wasn’t translated into English until 1991. It is his fourth book, and the one considered to be his first of his mature period. It was the next one, Norwegian Wood, that propelled him to superstardom (to his chagrin), and was the first translated into English for sale outside Japan. (His first novels were translated only for use in teaching English to Japanese students, and were not widely distributed outside of Japan until decades later.) 

 

I should mention that a few of the elements that seem to be present in most of Murakami’s books are in this one as well, although perhaps not as centrally as they would be later. There is the filled in or abandoned well, which may correspond to a bottomless well or sink. There are the constant references to Western music, both classical and popular. There is the uncomfortable sexual tension with a teen girl. There is a sequence involving water or drowning or being buried somehow. And, of course, there is the aching loneliness, which seems to pervade all of Murakami’s books. One wonders if his deep introversion is a factor in this theme.

 

I find it fascinating that Murakami did not train as a writer - he studied drama, then went on to own a jazz coffeehouse. He came to writing as well as running later in life, but became great at both. For someone who did not set out to become a great writer, his writing is multilayered and nuanced and highly imaginative. And weird. Definitely weird. And that is a good thing.

 

Trying to recommend a book to start with for newcomers to Murakami, I have no idea what to recommend. All three books I have read have been so very different, yet each is great in its own way.