Product Description

"A stunning work of art," the New York Observer wrote of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, "that bears no comparisons," and this is also true of this magnificent new novel, which is every bit as ambitious, expansive and bewitching. A tour-de-force of metaphysical reality, Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters. At fifteen, Kafka Tamura runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister. And the aging Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction, finds his highly simplified life suddenly upset. Their odyssey, as mysterious to us as it is to them, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle. Yet this, like everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #799800 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 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’

From the Publisher
The most unusual and mesmerising novel yet from Japanese cult author, Haruki Murakami

Customer Reviews

Compelling
What a wonderful book, the definition of a page-turner. The novel is really two stories in one, and slowly they both loosely intersect. The first main character is Kafka, a 15 year old boy who hates his father, so he runs away from home to find himself. The other main character is an elderly man called Nakata, who is rendered mentally defective at a young age and then develops the ability to talk to cats (no really). So much happens in 'Kafka on the Shore' that it would be fruitless for me to write an overview, but what I really loved about this book is that you get completely lost in Kafka's journey and want to know what's going to happen next, and then the following chapter is about Nakata. At first you start reading faster to get back to Kafka's story but then you get engulfed by Nakata's, and the same happens again when you get back to Kafka - it's brilliant. I thought the ending was a little cliché at first, but once I thought about it, I realised it was just a return to the normalcy that began the book. Highly recommended...

Not his best, but still unique
This isn’t Murakami’s best novel, but if you’re an existing fan there’s enough here to satisfy: that blurry merging of reality and fantasy; quirky minor characters (Hoshino is one of the best things about this book) and images and ideas that will linger after you’ve finished. Regular Murakami motifs and techniques crop up: twin narrative strands; a main character who’s a loner and seeker; a deserted cabin high up a wooded mountain; a parallel ‘other’ world…

As always, the prose is simple and the style engaging: it's alwasy easy to immerse yourself in Murakami's world.

That said, it didn’t quite come together for me this time. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was a hard act to follow, and Kafka on the Shore falls short. Around two thirds of the way through, the repetitious switching between Kafka’s story and Nakata’s story starts to tire as a format – more work on variety and pace would have helped here. And though loose ends and unanswered questions are Murakami’s style, too many ideas start running out of steam.

The somewhat American nature of Philip Gabriel’s translation jarred a little too – slang like “Jeez” and “Shoot” is peppered throughout. And the edition I read (Vintage paperback 2005) is riddled with typos. For example, at one crucial juncture (p289), Kafka asks Miss Saeki a vital question. There’s a big build-up, it’s an important moment in the plot, and then you get: “Do you have any chidlren?”

Chidlren?!

A fabulous quest
What can the world's most brave 15-year-old boy do, being haunted by a most fearful omen cast upon him by his own father? The answer is so obvious: start a fantastic journey towards an unknown-subconsciously known destination, aiming for a magical place under the form of a library. If because of such demand cats must talk, men must die, lives have to be changed forever, strange ancient mysteries have to be brought to light, a dumb man suddenly feels the urge to become a better human being and a young boy has to learn the different mysterious paths of life, well .... Those are only minor details.
This book is a fantastic metaphor which I've found myself unable to stop reading. The way I understood the story is certainly different from the way almost any other reader will understand it and that possibility of multiple different interpretations according to each one's own life experience is, I believe, part of the brilliancy in which it is written.
The text is at the same time funny, amusing, tender and dramatic. The plot is intriguing and the lessons you learn during this journey, well, they are really up to you... All possibilities are left open here. The only thing that can not happen is to NOT read this book. Certainly a masterpiece of modern literature. At the end you enjoyed the art of a master, admired his work, delighted yourself with his mind and, at least for myself, wondered how fabulous it would be to actually meet this author.