Kafka on the Shore - Books (Haruki Murakami, Paperback)

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Customer Reviews of Kafka on the Shore

N. Kastanje
Denmark
1st January 2009

One of the best books from one of the most unique authors
This is one of the best books I have read for a long time. Murakamis world is so unique that one you have entered it you want to keep coming back again and again. And spending time with "Kafka" is one of my favorite ways to do so.

Mrs. S. Payne
UK
3rd November 2008

Not his best but still good
This is the second book I have read by this author after reading Norwegian Wood. I loved Norwegian Wood so I was really looking forward to this one. I was left a little disappointed.
The story follows Kafka who has run away from his father at the age of 15 and Nakata who as a result of an accident as a child, is mentally upset but has the ability to talk to cats.
He two stories seem very separate to begin with but slowly they begin to intertwine. Just as you begin to really enjoy one of the characters story's, you flick back to the other one and visa versa. The story started so strongly but lost its momentum part way through. I found the ending a little cliché but I still enjoyed the book. As with Norwegian Wood, the story stayed with me for a while afterwards.

Daniel Bor
Cambridge, UK
27th September 2008

Fascinating, compelling, but also annoyingly convoluted.
This novel has two parallel and intertwining threads. The first concerns a 15 year old boy who runs away from his father's home and who seems pre-destined to sleep with his mother and sister. The second concerns a retired, semi-retarded man, whose mind was partially stolen in a childhood supernatural accident, but who has supernatural gifts in return. He goes on a quest to find some peace. The characters all behave in that natural, simple way with simple dialogue that is one of Murakami's trademarks, but which I found somewhat annoying at times in this particular novel. The plot, for all its surreal, bizarre twists, is strangely compelling and I found the book very gripping. It is clear that there is a tapestry of ideas within the novel, and this makes it rich and fascinating, but for me it also seemed to verge on confused and convoluted, and I think the ambiguities were a little too numerous for my tastes.

srhjn
UK
27th August 2008

Puzzling
This was my first experience of Murakami, so I had no preconceptions when I read the book. I finished it last night and I'm still rather baffled so apologies for the vagueness of this review, but as another reviewer said the story is so complex and confusing a summary would be practically impossible.
My first thoughts on starting reading it: this is a massive book; the writing style is so fluid, the descriptions so clear, you can really see and almost hear the scenes described; I'm really going to enjoy this. That Murakami is an immensely talented writer is obvious. But the story... It's so sprawling, the dual quest story, and complex that when I was reading I was thinking about the notes Murakami must have made before he started, (I don't know if he works like this, it's conjecture) the chapter summaries taking him closer to the conclusion. I admired his scope and planning as well as his writing skills. Well, having finished I still don't know if there is a true conclusion, and I'm not sure he did either.
Ambiguity is fine if there is a point there somewhere, if there's something to decipher that's murky and open to interpretation, but really, what is there here to interpret? There's a hollowness to this. Quests should be universal, applicable to everyman. The themes here are ostensibly love, betrayal and revenge but very much of the characters, and not universal, so it's hard to relate. It's a shame, because the narrative does drive along at a cracking pace. I really wanted it to be great. Maybe I didn't care too much about the characters (aside from Nakata). I guess that's the difficulty of writing about flawed characters - if you do it too well their flaws supercede any pity or love you might feel for them.
I really wanted to love this book, and I will never forget it. Parts really made me think and his style is superb. But it's not a good story and the ending was such a cop-out I feel cheated, hence the three stars. I want to read more by this great writer though. (I saw the 'chidlren' typo too - naughty proof-reader!)

John Kwok
New York, NY USA
17th August 2008

One of the Best Novels of 2005
"Kafka on the Shore" richly deserves its praise by The New York Times as one of its most notable books of fiction in 2005. On a more personal note, I regard it as the most compelling new work of fiction I have read this year, and substantially more absorbing a read than the novel which I regard now as a distant Number Two, Rick Moody's "The Diviners". But I do wonder whether it is truly one of Haruki Murakami's masterpieces; of these both "Norwegian Wood" and "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" are genuine literary classics of modern world literature. In stark contrast, I agree with a previous Amazon reviewer that the Kafka Tamura saga - one of the two intertwined plots - is reminiscent of "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". And yet here, unlike in the earlier novel, Murakami seems fascinated in seeing Kafka's strange odyssey via the eyes of a 15 year-old teenager, not a thirty-something adult Japanese male.

"Kafka on the Shore" is an epic, modern near classic devoted to the themes of loneliness, love and longing. While Kafka Tamura's odyssey for a mysterious mother and older sister who vanished when he was four is quite compelling in its own right, this plot is occasionally overshadowed by the bizarre saga of the geriatric simpleton Nakata, the mysterious survivor of a bizarre World War II episode in his childhood, and somone who has a most unusual rapport with cats. Indeed, Nakata, in many respects, may be the novel's true emotional core and truly one of the most compelling, original characters ever created by Murakami. Their separate quests will lead them from Tokyo to the distant Japanese town of Takamatsu, and involve not only love, but murder most foul, and strange events such as a rain of sardines falling from the sky. With "Kafka on the Shore", Haruki Murakami reaffirms his position as Japan's most important contemporary novelist, and one of our great writers of modern contemporary fiction.