Thoughts on "Kafka on the Shore"

It has been awhile since i have been excited by an author, one that makes me want to become lost in someplace around the world and shut down from all the things going around in it. This list has been populated by authors like Vonnegut, Palahniuk, Wilde,Camus, Sallinger,Hesse, and now they are accompanied by Haruki Murakami an amazing writer who i stumbled upon by coincidence, ironically enough one of the main focal points of the book itself.


The book follows the story of a teen age Kafka Tamura,an intelligent, well cultured and good looking 15 year old, who has run away from home trying to escape what appears to be his destiny and embarks on a journey that at first seems to owe a lot to JD Sallingers novel of perpetual adolescence "Catcher in the Rye" but in reality is more in debt with Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" and to (obviously) Franz Kafka's multiple metaphysical and patricidal musings, but these comparisons fall short to a book whose greatest achievement is the juxtaposition and contrast between Kafka Tamura's coming of age story to the illiterate Satoru Nakata' magical dreamlike adventure(where pieces of Gabriel Garcia Marquez "100 Years of Solitude" can be picked up), him being the other main character whose actions greatly affect Kafka's life giving the reader the feeling that they are somehow in sync, even beckoning us to assume they are the same person.
One of the highlights of this book is the way it unseemingly blurs the lines between reality and dreams, and makes us wonder if fishes can really fall from the sky, cats can really talk or if our spirits really can project themselves to perform acts of love or hate. Murakami also tries to explore the meaning of fate, decision and coincidence trying to get the reader to ask how much really is up to our own free will, how much is up to fate, god or buddha and who is the one overseeing such relationships. One of the best examples of this is how Kafka runs away from the fate his father has placed on him and how it slowly catches up to no matter how hard he tries to run, because he somehow wants it to happen, or how Nakata accepts his fate and tries hardly to fullfill his destiny, but yet is saddened because he did not chose to be like this saying that he is an "empty library, being this the ying and yang of the novel.

This book is one that is not meant to be read casually, it needs your full attention and does not ask for it kindly, it demands it violently. One needs to understand that this book is not going to be easy to understand on a conscious level but in a way you will feel that you have just encountered something that will change the way you subconciously view things, making you feel as if youve entered a brand new world.

Currently listening to: Animal Collective-Fireworks