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Haruki Murakami Has Lost the Sauce
Two new works read more like fan fiction set in the extended Murakami universe than the thrillingly strange novels he’s famous for.
More than any other contemporary writer, Haruki Murakami has become the poster boy for a particular type of global novel — deracinated, stripped of local references that might stump international audiences, and generally written in a simplified form of its original language, the better to ease the process of translation. Both books shed some light on the riddle of Murakami’s late style, which manages to project the quiet self-assurance of the old master at the same time as it embodies — in its hamfisted gestures, overreliance on bathos, and unflagging avoidance of subtlety — all the classic foibles of the literary hack. Hard-Boiled Wonderland is a sort of goofy sci-fi pastiche following a Chandler-esque protagonist with the ability to encrypt information using only his brain as he plunges into a mystery involving competing data agencies; a half-mad professor and his attractive, though slightly overweight, granddaughter (a minor weight problem is basically her only defining trait); and subterranean creatures, known as Murks, that resemble the kappa of Japanese folklore.
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