Murakami Haruki: Kafka On The Shore

[DouglasM]

Re: Murikama: Kakfa on The Shore

I'm eager to read 1Q84. As for Kafka On The Shore, it was my first contact with Murakami too. A five star accomplishment, no doubt. I like the way he mixes western pop culture with modern japanese scenery in his books, always bringing back the theme of loneliness throughout his work.

 

[Peeping Tom]

Re: Murikama: Kakfa on The Shore

I'm eager to read 1Q84. As for Kafka On The Shore, it was my first contact with Murakami too. A five star accomplishment, no doubt. I like the way he mixes western pop culture with modern japanese scenery in his books, always bringing back the theme of loneliness throughout his work.

You might also want to read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which many consider his best. I personally rank it above Kafka on the Shore, but just barely. I don't know how IQ84 will affect my ranking, but I'm happily looking forward to finding out.

Also, I would heartily recommend A Wild Sheep Chase.

 

[DouglasM]

Re: Murikama: Kakfa on The Shore

Unfortunately, there isn't a portuguese translation in Brazil from A Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. They have it in Portugal, I could buy, but don't know about the quality of the translation and I have an english edition here, waiting to be read. Got to give it a try soon.

A Wild Sheep Chase seems really enjoyable, I read the beginning and was hooked on it.

My favorite Murakami is Norwegian Wood, but there's a lot to read yet.

 

[dolgoff]

I really like Kafka on the Shore, but my favourite so far has been Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It might be because it was my second Murakami book after Norwegian Wood, thus making it my first Murakami book. Not that I'm slighting Norwegian Wood at all, I thought it was wonderful. But in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, it does sort of stand separate from the rest of his catalogue in terms of style. I think I also liked HWATEOTW the most because of its fast pace and more cerebral tone, rather than the emotional themes of much of his other work, including Kafka.

 

[Thit Soe]

"Kafka on the Shore" is the most amazing novel I have ever read.The runaway
boy to search for his true identity.I want to enjoy some more works like that.

 

[Phuongie]

I only began reading Murakami two summers ago and I have finished South of the Border, West of the Sun; Norwegian Wood; Kafka on the Shore; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles; Sputnik Sweetheart; and After Dark. I recently acquired his journalistic work, Underground, and I can't wait to begin that. Of the novels I have read of his, Kafka on the Shore is by far my favorite. I find myself going back and reading the passages when Kafka is in the cabin in the woods, or at the library. Through these sections, Murakami seems to depict the ideal sort of "reading environments" within the novel: a secluded cabin furnished with food, a library that is pristine and not too busy.

There are definite themes and motifs (the mundane male narrator who frames the narratives of female characters; idealized romantic relationships and female characters dressed in blue; highly cultured and refined characters depicted within novels that critique the cold capitalistic culture of Japan) that recur throughout his work, but it's that very repetition that I am drawn towards when I pick up a bearing his name. I have been disappointed by the "traditional" Murakami-style in Sputnik Sweetheart and his more experimental work, After Dark. They both began fairly promising, but I felt that the endings were too vague.

I hear that Norwegian Wood is being made into a movie - does anyone know if this is true?

 

[Peeping Tom]

I hear that Norwegian Wood is being made into a movie - does anyone know if this is true?

It's true. Norwegian Wood is being made into a movie. Tentative release date is December 2010 in Japan.

 

[Daniel del Real]

Yesterday I started Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World and so far it looks a very promisory book. Just having read three chapters I can tell this book seems to have all the elements I love from long Murakami's novels as Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Anyone have read this one?

 

[sirena]

I was quite anxious to read Kafka on the Shore, especially after I?ve heard that?s as good as Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Even better, they said. So, for weeks I've been trying to borrow it in a public library, unsuccessfully. I was almost prepared to buy ?the damn thing?, when I finally found it. I was so happy! ?It?s act of God,?I said.

You can?t imagine my astonishment, when I discovered its "true nature?:

Morbidity: Johnnie Walker takes pleasure in butchering cats by cutting their hearts out and eating them, while they're still beating, because he wants to make a flute, or whatever ?

Bizarreness: the school children fall into some kind of trance, from which they can?t wake up for hours, because they saw teacher?s towels soaked up with menstrual blood

Perversion: 15th year old boy lusts for 50th year old woman, for who he has a suspicion to be his mother, and, of course, she knows that; eventually he sleeps with her;
a young woman performs a handjob on the same 15th year old boy and at the same time, wishing to be his sister?

And above all else, BOREDOM: the novel is unnecessary long (my copy has 490 pages) and ?outstretched?. The characters are two-dimensional and shallow. The female characters are just plain T E R R I B L E!!!

Personally, I can handle morbidity, bizarreness, and even perversion, in a literature (though, I?m not so sure about boredom), when they're in some connection with a story, ?justified?, so to speak. However, in this novel that won?t be the case. Here, nothing makes sense at all.

There?s a mention of the myth about Oedipus. What?! Where?! Why?! How?! I don?t know!!! Do you?!

The boy flees from home. Why and to go where?! To a gym?! Or a library, perhaps?! Oh, come on! Please!

I thought Norwegian Wood is his worst novel. How wrong I was! Nevertheless, I forgave him.

I?m not sure I?d be able to do that this time. Again. Sorry!

 

[Daniel del Real]

Personally, I can handle morbidity, bizarreness, and even perversion, in a literature (though, I?m not so sure about boredom), when they're in some connection with a story, ?justified?, so to speak. However, in this novel that won?t be the case. Here, nothing makes sense at all.

It only means you'll be missing great books containing those topics just because of your misconceptions. This excludes amazing books like Nabokov's Lolita, Coetzee's Disgrace or something as basic as The Edipus Myth in Greek tragedy. You need to be open to everyone's point of view and description of reality in order to obtain more from literature. If you just stick to your prejudices it's a difficult path to follow.
It's ok you didn't like the book but you can't tell morbidity, bizarreness and perversion are the cause for it.

 

[Stiffelio]

I was quite anxious to read Kafka on the Shore, especially after I?ve heard that?s as good as Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Even better, they said. So, for weeks I've been trying to borrow it in a public library, unsuccessfully. I was almost prepared to buy ?the damn thing?, when I finally found it. I was so happy! ?It?s act of God,?I said.

You can?t imagine my astonishment, when I discovered its "true nature?:

Morbidity: Johnnie Walker takes pleasure in butchering cats by cutting their hearts out and eating them, while they're still beating, because he wants to make a flute, or whatever ?

Bizarreness: the school children fall into some kind of trance, from which they can?t wake up for hours, because they saw teacher?s towels soaked up with menstrual blood

Perversion: 15th year old boy lusts for 50th year old woman, for who he has a suspicion to be his mother, and, of course, she knows that; eventually he sleeps with her;
a young woman performs a handjob on the same 15th year old boy and at the same time, wishing to be his sister?

And above all else, BOREDOM: the novel is unnecessary long (my copy has 490 pages) and ?outstretched?. The characters are two-dimensional and shallow. The female characters are just plain T E R R I B L E!!!

Personally, I can handle morbidity, bizarreness, and even perversion, in a literature (though, I?m not so sure about boredom), when they're in some connection with a story, ?justified?, so to speak. However, in this novel that won?t be the case. Here, nothing makes sense at all.

There?s a mention of the myth about Oedipus. What?! Where?! Why?! How?! I don?t know!!! Do you?!

The boy flees from home. Why and to go where?! To a gym?! Or a library, perhaps?! Oh, come on! Please!

I thought Norwegian Wood is his worst novel. How wrong I was! Nevertheless, I forgave him.

I?m not sure I?d be able to do that this time. Again. Sorry!

If you didn't like Murakami, that's fine, it's your prerrogative. But please, never as Why or How or Where from a novel? If you didn't understand it, READ IT AGAIN. If you still can't grasp any meaning out of it and you still need questions answered, then I'd suggest you turn to writers like Danielle Steel or Paulo Coelho.

 

[sirena]

It only means you'll be missing great books containing those topics just because of your misconceptions. This excludes amazing books like Nabokov's Lolita, Coetzee's Disgrace or something as basic as The Edipus Myth in Greek tragedy. You need to be open to everyone's point of view and description of reality in order to obtain more from literature. If you just stick to your prejudices it's a difficult path to follow.
It's ok you didn't like the book but you can't tell morbidity, bizarreness and perversion are the cause for it.

I actually quite liked Nabokov's Lolita, Coetzee's Disgrace!

 

[sirena]

If you didn't like Murakami, that's fine, it's your prerrogative. But please, never as Why or How or Where from a novel? If you didn't understand it, READ IT AGAIN. If you still can't grasp any meaning out of it and you still need questions answered, then I'd suggest you turn to writers like Danielle Steel or Paulo Coelho.

You can't handle the truth!

 

[DB Cooper]

Speaking of 1Q84, does anyone have a clue what the plot is about?

 

[Bottle Rocket]

I started reading Murakami stories published in the New Yorker magazine, and then went on to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. They are still my favorites, even though I really like After Dark and most of the others as well.

He's my favorite Asian by far, though I like Oe too (and also the other, blood-thirsty Murakami of Coin Locker Babies).


BRocket

 

[vishmili]

great review. I definitely agree with your reference to the music.
I took it into my own hands to give the book itself my own spin on it and tried to make sense of it on my blog.
Here's a link to the entry: http://idefiningi.blogspot.com/2011/01/reason-n-kafka-on-shore-review.html

I give the book a 4.5/5 - it lacks the .5 for not being completely satisfying by the last page because it's so puzzling; however, if you're willing to work for it and wrap your head around it's magic, it certainly earns its 5 stars.

 

[JTolle]

One of my favorite passages in Kafka on the Shore:

He gently lays a hand over mine. "There are a lot of things that aren't your fault. Or mine, either. Not the fault of prophecies, or curses, or DNA, or absurdity. Not the fault of Structuralism or the Third Industrial Revolution. We all die and disappear, but that's because the mechanism of the world itself is built on destruction and loss. Our lives are just shadows of that guiding principle. Say the wind blows. It can be a strong, violent wind or a gentle breeze. But eventually every kind of wind dies out and disappears. Wind doesn't have form. It's just a movement of air. You should listen carefully, and then you'll understand the metaphor." (336)
​

 

[Raphael Lambach]

Re: Murikama: Kakfa on The Shore

As for me it's hist best novel ever.
I loved "The colorless Tsukuru" but it can't hold a candle to 'Kafka in the shore'.

 

[OverTheMountains]

Re: Murikama: Kakfa on The Shore

I'm really quite surprised by how many of you have enjoyed this book, but maybe it deserves a second chance. For my part, I thought the translation was quite poor. I also thought that the story had no real... point. Nothing that I could make sense of. I'd like to read more of his work though. I enjoyed one of his other novels, and one of his collections of short stories - both of which were translated by somebody else. Neither of them were beautiful or unusually strong, but both were good.

This one was my first, and it left an odd and enduring, and mostly unsatisfied, taste in my mouth.