Product Description

The most eagerly awaited Murakami novel yet. Already a massive best-seller in Japan

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #979 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Stuart Jeffries, Guardian
'I've never read a novel that I found so compelling because of its narrative inventiveness and love of storytelling...great entertainment'.

The Book Magazine
`truly staggering'

Synopsis
"Kafka on the Shore" follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's new novel is at once a classic tale of quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.

Customer Reviews

kAFKA ON THE SHORE
This is a fantastic book, mysterious, cunning and ruthless. The style of writing is beautiful. There have not been many books i have read that have kept me up till 4 am and made me late for work.

Good book, bad voice acting
I'd give the story itself 4/5 stars but as this is an audio book, the narrators are also being reviewed. First off I'm English, not American, but despite this I still found the American accent on this audio book probably the worst fake accent I've ever heard, it's like the voice actor was taking revenge for Dick Van Dyke in 'Mary Poppins'. It really ruined half the story for me.

Beguiling, interleaved, but never confusing.
The book seemed to have 2 quite different personalities; both in a literal sense and in that the first half read so differently from the second.

In setting the themes up, the story is more or less a traditional telling of 2 tales that it is clear will intertwine later - although we don't know how.

The second half, whilst retaining a strong narrative drive, is far more mystical and sometimes threatens to become too philosophical.

There are quite a few questions left unanswered by the end, but enough is done to make the overall experience highly rewarding and a satisfying read.

As my first venture into the works of a Japanese author, I was pleasantly surprised. I will certainly read more by the same author and am about to read "Spring Snow" by Yukio Mishima having been given a taster of a fascinating and different culture.