Kafka on the shore - Haruki Murakami

Book Number: 01
Book Title: Kafka on the Shore

Author: Haruki Murakami

Publisher: October 6th 2005 (first published 2002) by Vintage. 

Category: Fiction - vague, distached, unreal.

Binding: Paperback, 512 pages.

Date of completion: 4th December, 2008.

Short description / Book summary (www.goodreads.com): Kafka on the shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark phophecy. The ageing Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his simple life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. 

At one a classic tale of quest, Kafka on the Shore is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all, it is a bewitching and wildly inventive novel from a master stylist. 

My Thoughts: Being the first of my Murakami reads, I had great expectations off this book. With the sort of reviews this author has sought during conversations with people, I went out of my way to pick up a copy (insert: from Blossoms on Church Street offcourse) and dived into it sometime around July this year. 

In praise, I do like some parts of the way the book is written. There are paragraphs that hold your interest very carefully while others you skip just to avoid the long and descriptive narrative. The storyline defies imagination and takes off to where ever it pleases, it seems, just to get the story moving. Assuming that the writing conforms to the style of the author, the book seems to lack fine tuning in the details and therefore allows the narrative to bear its soul to the critique of the reader. 

I admit to accounting for the minimal participation of the reader during the journey through the book. On a personal note, I like my books to be personally engaging. Between books, I'd favour one that allows me to play around with the characters and writing in my own head, while giving me space to draw out their characters and become a part of the narrative, so to speak. Kafka on the shore, in sense of the need, is cold, uncertain and at times rudely passive in its socialising with the reader. 

There are very few books that I let go incompletely read and I give Kafka on the Shore the benefit of the doubt of not being that unbearable so as to find me dreading its completion. Still, considering the time lapse between its first page and now, it will go down as one of my many timewasted reads. This criticism does not go beyond the book itself and therefore, i am on the lookout for another one of Haruki Murakami's works to then make my judgements about him as a writer. 

Characters:  Kafka Tamura, Nakata, Miss Saeki, Oshima, Hoshino, Sakura.

My rating of the book: *1/2
Next read: Septimus Heap Book One: Magyk by Angie Sage