Hard-Boiled es la última novela de Murakami que he leído, una historia bastante rara, una trama que se complica hacia la segunda mitad del libro y un final que no estoy seguro de haber entendido del todo.
El libro salta entre dos mundos distintos y a la vez conectados entre sí, como los dos hemisferios de nuestro cerebro. Por un lado tenemos el que llamaremos “mundo normal”, donde nos situamos en un Tokyo pseudo-futurista, donde se libra una especie de guerra por la información entre dos grandes facciones, El Sistema y los Semiotecs.
Unos tratan de proteger la información y otros tratan de robarla. Para ello el Sistema ha creado a los Calcutecs, seres humanos que, tras someterse a cierta operación cerebral, son capaces de realizar complejas operaciones de encriptación.
El otro mundo, que llamaremos “fin del mundo” (reconozco que con la traducción pierde un poco), es un lugar extraño. Consiste en una ciudad “perfecta” rodeada de un muro infranqueable, también “perfecto”, donde pacen unicornios y donde la gente parece haber perdido su memoria, su mente y su sombra.
Los personajes son típicamente murakamianos. Como es habitual ninguno tiene nombre si no que suelen ser referidos por su profesión. Así pues tenemos al profesor, un excéntrico científico que vive en un laboratorio subterráneo rodeado de INKlings (una especie de kappas), a la nieta del profesor, a la bibliotecaria, al guardián de la puerta o a un viejo coronel. Todos con una personalidad bastante compleja, incluso siniestra en ocasiones y con cierto tinte melancólico en otras.
Aquí os dejo alguno de los fragmentos que más me gustaron:
“This is a poor town. No room for idle people wandering around. Everybody has a place, everybody has a job. Yours is in the library reading dreams. You did not come here to live happily ever after, did you?”
“These few weeks will be the hardest for you. It is the same as with broken bones. Until they set, you cannot do anything. Believe me.”
“You mean to say I am anxious because my shadow still is not dead?”
“I do,” the old officer nods. “I, too, remember the feeling. You are caught between all that was and all that must be. You feel lost. Mark my words: as soon as the bones mend, you will forget about the fracture.”
Now for a good twelve-hours sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn’t stop it. I was going to sleep.
In due time, autumn too vanishes. One morning I awake, and from a glance at the sky I know winter is near. Gone are the high, sprightly autumn clouds; in their place a heavy cloud bank glowers over the Northern Ridge, like a messenger bearing ill tidings. Autumn had been welcomed as a cheerful and comely visitor; its stay was too brief, its departure too abrupt.
She is not to be found. There is no human presence.
I sit on a wooden bench for lack of anything to do. I wait for her to come. If the door is unlocked, as it was, then she will. I keep my vigil, but there is no sign of her. All time outside the Library has ceased. I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing.
“How can the mind be so imperfect?” she says with a smile.
I look at my hands. Bathed in the moonlight, they seem like statues, proportioned to no purpose.
“It may well be imperfect, I say, “but it leaves traces. And we can follow those traces, like footsteps in the snow.”
“Where do they lead?”
“To oneself,” I answer.
Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it’s time to drink.
“The strange thing is, everything washed up from the sea was purified. Useless junk, but absolutely clean. There wasn’t a dirty thing. The sea is special in that way. When I look back over my life so far, I see all that junk on the beach. It’s how my life has always been.Gathering up the junk, sorting thought it, and then casting it off somewhere else. All for no purpose, leaving it to wash away again.”
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