Kafka on the Shore

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 novel is at once a classic 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.

Review: This is the first book that I've read of Haruki Murakami's and I'm not really sure what to make of it. There's a lot about it that I liked, the way the author mingles the ordinary with the mystical. It reminded me of Neil Gaiman's writing although I thought that the storyline was far more vague and there was less humour. It was very lyrical and poetic and had some great characters and strong imagery. On the downside I did feel like I was in the middle of a fog trying to find my way out to the exit.

Out of the two main storylines I was most drawn to the one about the elderly and simple minded Nakata. Nakata had been quite a clever child until a strange and bizarre incident caused him to lose all of his memory and most of his mental capacity. He has lost the ability to communicate easily with other people but has developed instead a unique talent for conversing with cats and it's a chance meeting with one particular lost cat that sets him off on a road trip of extraordinary adventure. I felt very emotionally attached to Nakata, he was like a very honest and disarming child who just says whatever it is they're thinking without feeling the need to complicate or be evasive.

'Nakata let his body relax, switched off his mind, allowing things to flow through him. This was natural for him, something he'd done ever since he was a child, without a second thought. Before long the borders of his consciousness fluttered around, just like the butterflies. Beyond these borders lay a dark abyss. Occasionally his consciousness would fly over the border and hover over that dizzying black crevasse. But Nakata wasn't afraid of the darkness or how deep it was. And why should he be? That bottomless world of darkness, that weighty silence and chaos, was an old friend, a part of him already. Nakata understood this well. In that world there was no writing, no days of the week, no scary Governor, no opera, no BMWs. No scissors, no tall hats. On the other hand, there was also no delicious eel, no tasty bean-jam buns. Everything is there, but there are no parts. Since there are no parts, there's no need to replace one thing with another. No need to remove anything, or add anything. You don't have to think about difficult things, just let yourself soak it all in. For Nakata, nothing could be better.'

The other storyline about fifteen year old runaway Kafka I was less keen on, I couldn't really warm to him and didn't ever feel I knew him at all. Kafka is running away from his past, in particular his father who has cursed him with some sort of Oedipal prophecy. He would like to find his mother and sister who he has never known. He has an alter ego -'the boy named Crow' - who more often than not provides Kafka with encouragement and words of wisdom.

The writing is very sensual although at times I thought it veered over into the gratuitous and the sex began to sound like the wishful thinking of every teenage boy - maybe it was. It's packed full of metaphor, weird time loops, people that may or may not be what or whom they seem, lots of magical realism with talking cats and skies full of raining mackerel and random philosophical quotations.

The book is full of gorgeous ingredients but when mixed together I'm not sure that they fulfilled their potential. I just didn't get it, that was all. I've had dreams similar to this and they're the type that you wake up sweating and bewildered about. I can still appreciate that it's an incredible piece of surreal writing. I was intrigued by it but ultimately confused. I realise that I probably need to have more ends tied up than this sort of writing is willing to provide which is a bit disappointing.