| Kafka on the Shore |  | Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage
This item is no longer available
Rating:  211 reviews
Sales Rank: 3,612
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.635
ASIN: B000FC2ROU
Publication Date: January 18, 2005
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Amazon.com Review
The opening pages of a Haruki Murakami novel can be like the view out an airplane window onto tarmac. But at some point between page three and fifteen--it's page thirteen in Kafka On The Shore--the deceptively placid narrative lifts off, and you find yourself breaking through clouds at a tilt, no longer certain where the plane is headed or if the laws of flight even apply. Joining the rich literature of runaways, Kafka On The Shore follows the solitary, self-disciplined schoolboy Kafka Tamura as he hops a bus from Tokyo to the randomly chosen town of Takamatsu, reminding himself at each step that he has to be "the world¹s toughest fifteen-year-old." He finds a secluded private library in which to spend his days--continuing his impressive self-education--and is befriended by a clerk and the mysteriously remote head librarian, Miss Saeki, whom he fantasizes may be his long-lost mother. Meanwhile, in a second, wilder narrative spiral, an elderly Tokyo man named Nakata veers from his calm routine by murdering a stranger. An unforgettable character, beautifully delineated by Murakami, Nakata can speak with cats but cannot read or write, nor explain the forces drawing him toward Takamatsu and the other characters. To say that the fantastic elements of Kafka On The Shore are complicated and never fully resolved is not to suggest that the novel fails. Although it may not live up to Murakami's masterful The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Nakata and Kafka's fates keep the reader enthralled to the final pages, and few will complain about the loose threads at the end. --Regina Marler
Product Description
With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
This magnificent new novel has a similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch the reader. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, 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 (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddleâyet this, along with 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.
Extravagant in its accomplishment, Kafka on the Shore displays one of the worldâs truly great storytellers at the height of his powers.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 211
 hypnotizing, magical, beautifully traslated and read on audio version July 27, 2010
shira (antarctica)
I didn't expect that much of this book- ever since Norwegian wood & Wind up bird chronicles (which are my favorite books ever) i've been somewhat disappointed by the strangeness/ illogical elements of his work, but stumbled on the audio version and was amazed and hypnotized in a way a book so very rarely does (never listed to an audio book before but thy did n amazing job)
just like a david linch movie, it all makes some wonderfulness eventually. Rare masterpiece.
"What kind of metaphor is that?" June 12, 2010
Stephanie Dellosa
At one point in Kafka on the Shore, a character says, "Strange inexplicable events are happening one after the other. Maybe it's just a series of coincidences, but it still bothers me..."
"Maybe it's a metaphor?" Another character suggests.
"Maybe..." is the reply, "But sardines and mackarel and leeches raining down from the sky? What kind of metaphor is that?"
And that, my friends, pretty much sums up my first venture into the land of Murakami.
You read correctly - fish and leeches rain down from the sky. A mentally impaired old man talks to cats - and they talk back. Colonel Sanders (as in KFC) shows up not to sell chicken but to pimp a philosophy student cum hooker. Japanese school children picnicking on a hill, suddenly, inexplicably collapse, unconscious, then wake up with no memory of why and how. And there are ghosts, which appear ordinary by comparison to what goes on in the rest of the book.
All of these strange events are somehow tied with Kafka Tamura, a 15-year-old running away from his father and a curse of Oedipal proportions.
Murakami's world is a strange, dream-like, illogical one. If you like mysteries to be explained neatly and loose ends wrapped up by conclusion, you will be frustrated by Kafka on the Shore. I was never quite sure if we were going into science fiction, horror, fantasy, or the metaphysical realm. Murakami juggles all of these elements well.
Kafka on the Shore has meditative moments, but it's never plodding. If anything, I was constantly surprised. I'm still brooding, somewhat puzzled over the twists and turns in the story. "What kind of metaphor is that?" aptly explains my mood while reading this book.
Kafka on the Shore is uniquely imaginative - a wild ride worth taking.
A Twisted Tale of Coincidence, Tragedy, and Time Travel May 21, 2010
Tracey Carter (Maryland, USA)
This is the second book I've read by Haruki Murakami (The first being What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Vintage International) which is entirely different) so I didn't know what to expect. From other reviewers and the synopsis available here I gathered that it would have a philosophical bent, which it did, however many of the philosophy references were completely over my head not being well versed in philosophy myself. Even without getting every reference the novel was still a beautiful read.
At times Murakami telegraphs what will happen next but the structure of the novel still allows for a great deal of suspense as the chapters alternate between Kafka, a runaway fifteen year old from Tokyo, and Nakata, an elderly man beginning a journey of his own. The storytelling becomes very sweet towards the end of the novel which contrasts nicely with the raw realism from the earlier chapters.
This book is certainly not recommended for everyone. Some might find it too abstract or outlandish. It combines traditional literary storytelling with elements of fantasy and science-fiction without truly being a genre work. It's also a compelling story full of literary and philosophy references that enrich the narrative. With that in mind I would recommend the book to current and former college English and/or philosophy majors, fans of Plato, and readers looking for a very different work of fiction to read. It does have some cursing and explicit material so I would not recommend it for children or students, although high school juinors and seniors may enjoy it as an extracurricular read.
Myth and Magic in Contemporary Japan May 20, 2010
Stella Used Books
Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite authors, and this is a difficult book to explain. It has elements of myth (both Greek and Japanese), existentialism, magic, reincarnation, and romance. I think it can be classified as magical realism... but it is definitely a Japanese take on the genre, as is most of Murakami's work. The story focuses on an adolescent boy who runs away from home, and the narrative alternates between him and his counterpart of sorts, a mentally disabled old man who has strange abilities, such as being able to talk to cats. The talking with cats bit was one of my favorite parts of the story. It wasn't as corny or cutesy as it might sound, but was an interesting and (oddly enough) authentic element of the story.
The foundation for the story is the myth from Plato's Republic about how people were originally joined in twos, and the gods split them, and now we spend our lives searching for our "other half". The story's use of myth is excellent- it follows the structure of a classic Greek tale, but operates on a simpler, more everyday level. It doesn't have the grandiose feel of an epic, though in fact it really is one.
Extraordinary with the Ordinary April 22, 2010
W. Edmonson (Dallas,TX United States)
One of the reasons many fans of science fiction favor Star Wars over Star Trek is the overt spirituality found in the story. There is the force, which holds a mysterious presence over all the jedi do, and manages to hold the audience in rapture as its sages explain its workings. Obi Wan teaches Luke how to use a light saber, and as an example of the force, tells him to lower the blast shield so he can't see his opponent and must feel his way in the fight.
Since humanity began telling stories, the world of fairies, genii, gods, and otherworldly heroes have walked with us to impress and leave in their wake mystery and awe over what they take for granted as everyday life. I've found that in South American and Asian literature the world of fairies and creatures we can only imagine what strange creatures the characters describes are, and amazingly show themselves in stories that would otherwise seem ordinary. Visions of the future in dreams, visits from dead relatives, crossing the boundary between the living and the dead, all are examples these authors seem comfortable telling. This is one of them.
Murakami tells the story of Kafka, the fifteen year old who never knew his sister or mother and despises his father, forcing him to leave home with a hefty bit of cash and go in search of something he couldn't identify at the time. He goes to an anonymous town, meets a girl a few years older than himself, has a sexual encounter with her, and leaves to find himself living at a library owned by an older mysterious woman he is later attracted to. The story is charged with human sexuality and in places becomes nearly gratuitous in the description of what happens.
If it sounds a lot like the story of Oedipus, then you are right. It is the story of Oedipus told in modern day Japan with an overlay of Japanese culture and a fluid transition between what is real and unreal, life and death, and what is natural and supernatural. Like much of the animation coming from Japan, two worlds mix and the reader floats back and forth until each is indistinguishable. Anime seems obsessed with the relationship of the spiritual world to the digital one and how they two relate to each other in a way that can make sense with what came before.
What Murakami does well is his telling of the world of spirits where time stops and people are at the mercy of those who are familiar with the otherwise unfamiliar. He incorporates mystery into his story where it is obvious that a door to another world has been opened, and all the reader can do is stand and wonder along with the characters. The explanations of this other world are lacking, which works in the story to make it even more appealing and interesting. The story moves nicely, and each chapter ends with the reader wanting to know what happens next. Wonderful pairings occur. One is reminiscent of the pair in the movie "Rainman" where one is dependent on the other to survive in the world and seems to belong to another place, yet has so much to teach the person who seems wise to all around. Characters are strong and vivid in the story, and when they meet it is a task to imagine what the two would say to one another.
The story, however, lacks in contrast to what happens with Kafka and conclusions the story comes to in the end. The dialogue in the more dramatic parts is overly sentimental and predictable, which doesn't fit well with the wonderfully vivid and interesting descriptions of what happens to its characters.
Overall, it is a compelling read with interesting characters that are easily known. Certain conversations serve as an entrance to the mysterious world created, while others seem to serve as filler where characters can't seem to transcend the ordinariness of everyday interaction. He does well with showing the extraordinary in the extraordinary, but the extraordinary in the ordinary is still a mystery.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 211
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