Book Review: Kafka on the Shore
Utterly stupid book.
Perhaps Murakami had achieved such an iconic status by the time this book came out that he allowed his arrogance and egotism to overpower his common sense. In this self-obsessed careless mess, Murakami has failed to give any consideration for the precious time of his potential readers (especially new ones).
I can understand all the raving and good reviews are coming from Murakami fans who are used to his style and would read any shit written by him out of loyalty, but to a lay reader like me who chanced upon this book to take a break from well-written classics this was a terrible experience. Why on Earth did I venture to read this crap? (Note to self: Stick to renowned, dead authors and next time do quit the book if you don’t like the book. Don’t be a I-don’t-leave-books-halfway-kind-of-guy)
The chapters alternate between the stories of two seemingly connected characters: a 15-year old jack-ass named Kafka whose lame, anatomical description of his surroundings makes you want to put a bullet in your head and an old slug called Nakata who is plain dumb and is not afraid of mentioning it to everyone he meets. “Sorry dear cat, but Mr. Nakata is dumb. Nakata can’t read. Nakata can’t write," converses the old Nakata with seemingly intelligent cats, while he predicts weather patterns which involve raining of leeches and fishes from the Japanese sky.
At once the book was enticing to me, I thought, there must be a great amount of parallelism and metaphor in the story and it would be royal to crack all that symbolism. But half way through you become sure it’s not going to make any sense, and the author does a terrific job by making a stale curry out of it. I’d say perhaps multiple readings of the book, galloping everything written by Franz Kafka, gathering knowledge of Japanense history/spiritualism might reveal the connections and riddles that are running about in the book, but the reader must have a lingering interest to re-read the book. I didn’t have any stamina to bear the prose written by a teenager anymore, so I’m glad I finished the book. And let’s forget the story/plot for a moment because all great novels are not primarily known for their stories. But this doesn’t even have half-decent prose. It’s like a failed play where shallow characters read mechanical lines over and over.
Brimming with grossing out incest sex, characters who can’t stop showing off their knowledge about jazz and literature, and the author stepping in his characters time to time to throw out some forced metaphor at the poor reader, ‘Kafka on the shore’ is a neat mess. I sincerely hope that the Great Franz Kafka must have felt much disturbed in his grave on the publication of such adulating, sucking-up work.
Final Verdict: Read it if you’re a hardcore Murakami fan or you’re a lazy teenager who will bite into anything that’s thrown at him/her.
Rating: 1/5
