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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/818109.Kafka_on_the_Shore?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Kafka on the Shore" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1178660171m/818109.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/818109.Kafka_on_the_Shore?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Kafka on the Shore</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3354.Haruki_Murakami">Haruki Murakami</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/12042861?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars There is something so intriguing and mesmerizing about Murakami’s books. I can’t put my finger on it, nor can I fully explain it in simple words in a short review. Murakami isn’t just a book, it’s an experience. His characters are quirky, interesting, looking for answers, and wise beyond belief:
 	
 “That’s why I like to listen to Schubert while I’m driving. As I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of – that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.” [Oshima, p. 119]
 	
 The characters in a Murakami novel – in this case Kafka, a 15-year-old runaway; Oshima, who manages the library that Kafka lives in; Nakata, an old man who speaks to cats; and the elusively sad Miss Saeki – draw you into a story that is partly narrative, partly plot-driven, peppered with philosophical insights and linguistic manipulations, but mostly mythical in nature.
 	
 “The world of the grotesque is the darkness within us. Well before Freud and Jung shone a light on the workings of the subconscious, these two forms of darkness, was obvious to people. It wasn’t a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn’t even a correlation. Until Edison invented the electric light, most of the world was covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two.” [Oshima, p. 242]
 	
 Kafka on the Shore is a most unusual coming of age novel. It’s a murder mystery, a love affair, and a magnificent example of seamlessly beautiful storytelling:
 	
 “It’s as if when you’re in the forest, you become a seamless part of it. When you’re in the rain, you’re a part of the rain. When you’re in the morning, you’re a seamless part of the morning. When you’re with me, you become a part of me.” [Miss Saeki, p. 472]
 
 I preferred Norwegian Wood to Kafka on the Shore, but admittedly I didn’t give Kafka much of a fighting chance. I’ve been buried in academic reading, with little time for novels, and it took me over a month to read Kafka. I suspect that a re-read, conducted under different circumstances, would raise my rating to a perfect 5. In the meantime, I’ve added three more Murakami titles to my “must-read” list. :)
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/760831?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Donna's review
rating:
bookshelves: 1001-books, expanding-horizons, japan, new-york-times

There is something so intriguing and mesmerizing about Murakami’s books. I can’t put my finger on it, nor can I fully explain it in simple words in a short review. Murakami isn’t just a book, it’s an experience. His characters are quirky, interesting, looking for answers, and wise beyond belief:

“That’s why I like to listen to Schubert while I’m driving. As I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of – that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.” [Oshima, p. 119]

The characters in a Murakami novel – in this case Kafka, a 15-year-old runaway; Oshima, who manages t...more There is something so intriguing and mesmerizing about Murakami’s books. I can’t put my finger on it, nor can I fully explain it in simple words in a short review. Murakami isn’t just a book, it’s an experience. His characters are quirky, interesting, looking for answers, and wise beyond belief:

“That’s why I like to listen to Schubert while I’m driving. As I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of – that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.” [Oshima, p. 119]

The characters in a Murakami novel – in this case Kafka, a 15-year-old runaway; Oshima, who manages the library that Kafka lives in; Nakata, an old man who speaks to cats; and the elusively sad Miss Saeki – draw you into a story that is partly narrative, partly plot-driven, peppered with philosophical insights and linguistic manipulations, but mostly mythical in nature.

“The world of the grotesque is the darkness within us. Well before Freud and Jung shone a light on the workings of the subconscious, these two forms of darkness, was obvious to people. It wasn’t a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn’t even a correlation. Until Edison invented the electric light, most of the world was covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two.” [Oshima, p. 242]

Kafka on the Shore is a most unusual coming of age novel. It’s a murder mystery, a love affair, and a magnificent example of seamlessly beautiful storytelling:

“It’s as if when you’re in the forest, you become a seamless part of it. When you’re in the rain, you’re a part of the rain. When you’re in the morning, you’re a seamless part of the morning. When you’re with me, you become a part of me.” [Miss Saeki, p. 472]

I preferred Norwegian Wood to Kafka on the Shore, but admittedly I didn’t give Kafka much of a fighting chance. I’ve been buried in academic reading, with little time for novels, and it took me over a month to read Kafka. I suspect that a re-read, conducted under different circumstances, would raise my rating to a perfect 5. In the meantime, I’ve added three more Murakami titles to my “must-read” list. :)
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