Product Description

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1333 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

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.

Interesting
This book starts soooo strong. It immediately draws you into 2 different stories.
The first story about a young teenager - Kafka - who decides to run away from home. Whilst trying to discover who he is and what his mysterious past contains, he encounters a number of complex characters on his journey.
The second story surrounds a magical event that occurred years earlier in the mystic mountains of Japan.

I was unable to put the book down, complete mesmerized by its creativity and energy.
However, at the midway point of the book, I started getting a bit exhausted. The amazing beginning had died down and some of the story lines became too abstract and too predictable. I feel the author kinda of lost his way...

The ending drew me in again, returning to the magic of the start of the book - fantasy, imagination and in-depth character studies.

It is quite hard to write a review of this book without revealing too much of the plot. What I can say is that I would recommend people read this book, if anything for the amazing start and the wonderful and tangible picture it paints of Japan.

This is the first book by Murakami I've read. I have a funny feeling this probably isn't his best work and there is more (and better) where this came from. Therefore, I will definitely give his books another go, but nonetheless, am glad I picked this one to start!

Mesmerising Murakami
Having read this book and another of his I have to say that Murakami is a genius with words. The way he writes about day to day life I find to be completely awe-inspiring. True it might not be everybody's cup of tea the way he moves back and forth between surrealism and reality, but it's clever writing. Addictive. He seems to write those books that you race through because you just need to see what happens next - only to leave you sad when you reach the last page because it's all over. Murakami makes me happy to be alive. Spectacular.