Kafka On The Shore

J Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami

Blech. The beginning was fine, but slid further into repetitive (and excruciatingly artificial)...more

Blech. The beginning was fine, but slid further into repetitive (and excruciatingly artificial) dialogue as it went along. The last third (at least) of the book was a slog, to say the least. I get the whole "mystical realism" concept, but this seemed utterly pointless. Murakami seemed to throw in similies by the fistful every time he couldn't figure out what to do, plot-wise. The characters were unbelievable for the most part, if not downright idiotic (read: Hoshino and Colonel Sanders). Plot threads are picked up and then dropped with annoying frequency. YUCK. If I wasn't so stubborn, I would have given up on this book, but I kept hoping for something amazing to happen. No such luck. If this is Murakami's best, I think I'll skip the rest of his oeuvre.    hide

Ummm, much like "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle" there's not much of a chance I will ever read this...more

Ummm, much like "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle" there's not much of a chance I will ever read this again. Much like one of Murakami's main characters, once you come out of the other side of one of these things, you're just glad to have made it out alive! I think I liked the metaphors in this book more than the story as a whole. There were moments of extreme horror, insane surrealism and profound revelation, but that's par for the course with Murakami. What made "Kafka" particularly appealing for me were wonderful lines like:"The expression on her face slowly retreats somewhere far away, then comes back. Kind of like a parade that dissapears down a street, then marches back up the same street toward you again."I've seen that happen! That's amazing!   hide

Much better than the unwieldy The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I'll be honest and say that Murakami can...more

Much better than the unwieldy The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I'll be honest and say that Murakami can be really hit or miss sometimes. This one was very tightly written; it didn't go into the miasma of sideplots that Bird did, and it kept to the two main plotlines, both of which I found interesting. =) Excellent book to start off a new Murakami fan, though I'd still recommend Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World as the best Murakami novel I've read.    hide

this book is a trip.. and makes for odd dreams if you read it before going to bed. throughout the...more

this book is a trip.. and makes for odd dreams if you read it before going to bed. throughout the book i'm sure i had a puzzled look as this was my first murakami book, i'm not quite sure i understood the entire book, and i'm positive there's a lot i missed..but it was definitely an interesting read. on a different note.. i'm reading sputnik sweetheart.. what's up with murakami and cats?!   hide

The more I read of Murakami the more it seems he's really just doing an extended study of...more

The more I read of Murakami the more it seems he's really just doing an extended study of subconscious (and collective unconscious and how the afterlife might tie into those ideas). Kafka on the Shore has got the whole dual-stories-that-converge, and the lovely subtle, very mentally-driven stories, all in that same wonderfully loose style. not his best, but still engaging. a bit more disturbing than some others, also.   hide