Kafka on the Shore Paperback – 6 October 2005

Some books we read are difficult to understand because of the uncommon things the writer chooses to write about, and it may be possible that,we as readers may endup with confusion & doubts.The book " Kafka On The Shore" by Haruki Murakami is one such book where you need to keep your rationale aside, else you miss the feeling of reading a book parexcellance.The book has two very intriguing characters,one is Kafka Tamura & the other one is Nakata. Kafka Tamura is a teenaged boy & a bibliophile,who runs away from his home,Nogata inTokyo to a far away place called Takamatsu,on his15th birthday.the reason being that, he hated his father & wanted to prove him wrong,from the Oedipal prophecy that he made for him & his repeated curses.He also hated himself for carrying the unfortunate genes that he has inherited from his father and he knows that he stands no chance to change it,but to live with it as a curse. While on his way aboard a bus he happens to meet a girl named Sakura,and they endup making a good bond of friendship between them.The thought of his sister about six years elder to him,who would have been about the same age as that of Sakura & who was taken away by his mother when he was just around four years of age crosses his mind for an instant while, giving him a subtle hint of his fathers prophecy. At Tokamatsu,he visits Komuramemorial library, which was on his list of visits, that he planned,before running away from home Here,he meets Mr.Oshima (a transgender, who was working as an assistant under Miss Saeki - (a beautiful slim lady in her mid-forties and also the boss of the library whose lineage is linked with Komura family).and that we could see an exceptional bond of friendship between them till the end of the book. The mysterious visits of Miss Saeki in the room of Kafka at the library,her constant staring at the photgraph titled 'Kafka on the shore',and later along with the song of the same title brings out the metaphysical relationships that he experiences both as Miss Saeki of 15 years age and also as Miss Saeki,the boss of the library,though looks mystical, but still we find reading something different & intresting.Kafka also sees his mother in Miss Saeki, who left him when he was four years old.Nakata is another important character,an old man,living on Governors subsidy,helping people to find the lost cats & accepting,whatever little they give back in return.At an early age of nine years,he is into an accident , which makes him lose all his past memory and turns him dumb. His often repeated sentence that "Nakata cannot read & write" and that he is dumb,catches your attention of the charectar with both sympathy & intrest.The mention of Nakata's shadow as being paler or lighter is noteworthy to consider him as incomplete.The way he goes about the words like sub city for subsidy,depart mint for department,minis tree for ministry etc brings out the humor and innocense of the charectar.Bur then,we find that he is blessed with some super natural powers beyond the scope of normal human beings.He can speak to the cats,follow instructions from a dog,and make fishes & leeches rain from the sky,predict a thunderstorm,speak to a stone.On an occasion we find Nakata killing one Mr.Jhonny Walker (father of Kafka which turns out to be the main twist in the story, as elsewhere we find Kafka falling unconscious & getting his shirt drenched in blood & the link of Kafka,Nakata in Johny Walkers murder hints a subtle hint of the prophecy.Besides the incidence also brings Sakura & Kafka together for a night) to rescue a cat and then confessing the same at a police station but they consider him dumb & was not taken seriously.After then,Nakata proceeds to complete his unaccomplished mission of finding an ' Entrance stone',where he was helped by one Mr.Hoshino,the truck driver who sees his Grandpa in him & helps him in finding the stone with the help of a fictions charecter ,by name Colonel Sanders.Hoshino learns that besides the stone Nakata is on the lookout for something else too,which he can not express,due to his limited thought and so he hires a taxi to go around and finally together they are able to findthe Komura memorial library at Takamatsu.Here Nakata happens to meet Miss Saeki and during conversations and with the touch of their hands,some past memories between them comes to the surface,and Miss Saeki identifing Nakata as the one in the painting.Later Miss Saeki hands Nakata a few files,asking him to burn all and dies immediately after. Nakata also dies later at the room after burning the files given to him by Miss Saeki,indicating the end of memories and their deaths.Overall, the book has many twists and turns with certain elements in the book that are beyond our normal thinking,but even though you can not stop yourself of going through the experience of reading an outstanding book.It also takes you closer to nature,dense forest,symbolism and metaphors,wisdom words etc.There are also too many coincidences in the story which are beyond belief but still having read an extraordinary book remains with the reader

Kafka on the Shore is your typical Murakami book -- it is surreal and has magical or supernatural elements strewn about the book, has hidden messages not all of which is clear even at the end, but is extremely interesting overall.The book is centred around two main characters -- Kafka Tamura who runs away from home to escape a prophecy and searches for his mother and sister, and Nakata, an old simple man who had a life-altering experience when young. and can now speak to cats. During their journey, we come across an imaginary person who is Kafka's advisor, fish that rain from the skies, a man who kills cats and stores their hearts in his refrigerator, a middle-aged rich woman who evokes Kafka's Oedipal complex, a transgendered gay man, alien abduction, soldiers lost in a forest who never get old, and several similar elements. The title itself refers to a painting and a song besides referencing the lead protagonist.The book explores the fine line between imagination and reality through the book, and the distinction often blurs for the reader. The explanations for many of the occurrences in the story are never completely clear and Murakami allows the reader to make her own interpretations. As he himself puts it, the book contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. The form the solutions take will be different for each reader. It's one of the books where the journey is infinitely more interesting than the destination and plenty of wonderful thought-provoking quotes enhance that enjoyment.Murakami is not for everyone, however. Some readers may be put off by the large extent of surrealism and even for those that enjoy it, parts of the story are left unexplained which can be somewhat unsatisfactory. However, most of his books are page-turners, delightful to read and provides the reader ample opportunity to contemplate the hidden meanings and nuances and Kafka on the Shore is no different. And that's what makes this a wonderful book to read!Pros: Extremely interesting and page-turning, thought-provokingCons: Some readers may find this too surreal, no clear explanation for some aspects of the story