| Product: |
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami |
| Date: |
10.01.06 (393 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Funny, tender, complex and highly readable.
Disadvantages: A lot of obscure references.
Little did I know when I picked up this book in the new category section of my local library that my concept of “ a challenging read” was about to be tested to its limits? I’ve read many classical books in the past and over the years I’ve read a few translations of modern books into English, but until now I’ve never attempted one by a Japanese writer. This book is the latest in a long line of award-winning books by the author, Haruki Murakami. Translated into English by Philip Gabriel, an associate Professor of Japanese at the University of Arizona, “Kafka on the Shore” has already been nominated as one of the best books of 2005 by both the English and New York Times.
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan on the 12th January 1949 and brought up in Kobe. His first book “ Hear the wind sing,” published in 1973 won him an award for the most promising new writer. Since then he had written ten fiction books and one non-fiction on the Tokyo gas attack. From 1991 to 1995 he moved to America where he taught at Princeton before returning to Japan in the aftermath of the gas attack.
As this is the first book I have read by the author I cannot comment on his previous books but doing a bit of research on the Internet it appears that most of his books have a surreal quality about them, which is difficult to place into any one category. Going by the usual plaudits, it isn’t just me who has difficulty in putting this into a category. “Spellbinding”, says the Times, “Addictive” by the Independent, “Wonderful” by the Daily Mail.
Outline.
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How could I possibly write about the “plot” when this is such a multi-layered book? But I have to start somewhere without duplicating the summary on the jacket sleeve, which was what actually drew me into reading the book. Just the mention of talking cats, fish raining from the sky and a prophecy made about a 15 year old boy was enough to tease my imagination but if I’m hoping to capture your interest there needs to be more, so bear with me for a while.
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing direction.”
Kafka (an assumed name) Tamura, runs away from home on his fifteenth birthday to get away from his hated father and a dire prophecy, which is hanging over his future. Taking the minimum amount of things he can put into a rucksack and enough of his father’s money to keep him going for a while, he puts as much distance between the capitol city as he can. Passing easily as an older boy, Kafka takes temporary lodgings in a small hotel whilst still following his normal pattern of using the gymnasium and visiting a very unique library, which soon becomes a refuge to him. But fate is not easy to avert and soon Kafka’s new life will lead him to meet people who are about to shape his life.
“Nakata’s not very bright, you see. I wasn’t always this way, but when I was little I had an accident and I’ve been dumb ever since. Nakata can’t write. Or read a book or newspaper.”
A freak incident in the war years caused 18 pupils of a small village school to lose consciousness while on a food-gathering trip in the mountains. One of these was Nakata, the only young boy not to regain full consciousness after a few hours. Now Nakata is a sixty-year-old man living on a small government subsidy and with the ability to talk to cats. He gains a few more yen by finding lost cats in the neighbourhood from where Kafka runs away. Strange things happen around Nakata, although he has no awareness of what is happening to him.
A brutal murder forces him to leave all he is familiar with, but there are people he comes into contact with who will help him to find something and some place he needs to get to.
“The forest is dark and deep, the towering trees forming a thick wall on both sides. Something of the forest is hiding there watching my every move. “
For a while Kafka has to into hiding, in a tiny log cabin far up in the mountains with the forest an ever-brooding presence he has to conquer in the end. For now it’s enough to know that this will be place which both gives him refuge and a clearer understanding of the forces at work on the fringes of everything he cannot understand.
Kafka’s destiny and that of Nakata are running on a parallel course, along with the friends they both make on their separate journeys, the ending is both startling and yet somehow fitting, leaving the reader wondering just what has occurred to reach this point.
Characterisation.
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Despi te the fact that all the characters are Japanese and therefore harder to emphasise with, being of a different culture, it’s a sheer pleasure to find such intricately detailed characters in one book. Nakata stood out for me as a man touched with more than the usual share of “magic” about him and the passages where he converses with cats are somehow believable. His naivety draws many people to him and this eccentricity is both touching and funny at the same time.
Kafka is a little less believable, although he only a boy he seems to far more erudite than the average fifteen -year-old, even given that he comes from a well-educated background. In conversations with his older friends, he shows a deep knowledge of the more philosophical works, some that I’d heard of but never actually read, let alone understood. On the other hand, he can be remarkably simplistic with his views on sexuality, especially with the interaction between him and the androgynous Oshima.
Miss Saeki, the middle-aged woman in charge of the library, is a much rounder character with a haunted past that is beautifully depicted by the author. Her role in the story is a pivotal one and therefore I can’t give much more away without spoiling the plot.
Murakami is definitely in touch with his feminine side to produce such a character with minute details, even down to the clothes she wears (this is integral to the story.)
Prose.
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Even though this is a translation from the Japanese, the writing is faultless with achingly beautiful turns of prose at times. The dialogue between Nakata and the cats is both humorous and realistic, whilst the sexual fantasies of Kafka could easily be applied to any young Western boy or girl. It’s this mixture of reality and the sense of the ridiculous, which keeps the reader turning the pages. There are some explicit sexual passages in the narrative, which could have gone either way, but are handled deftly with only the occasional jarring note of overly sexual excess. (This could be my own personal prejudice and others could see it differently.)
I did get a bit bogged down with the seemingly endless, (at times), references to works by obscure authors, where the dialogue became stilted and quite possibly well over my head. I’m sure it is relevant to the story and I’m not the best judge of academic works to say exactly where it fits in, but I have to be honest if I’m writing a review, which is meant to appeal to a wide range of readers. (We don’t all have doctorates in Philosophy). Even the choice of the title relates to another author.
Despite these minor niggles, I often felt swept away by some passages and felt that maybe I had missed something vital by not being well versed in some areas of my reading matter.
Summary.
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I enjoyed the book on several levels. As a straight story it has all the ingredients of a good story and can be read this way. On a different level, I recognised some of the Oedipus myth in the book (I must have retained more of Greek mythology than I thought.) For those who haven’t studied literature at “A-level”, this is a classic tale of patricide, mother and sister-love.
Much is made of Metaphysical reality in the book, which could either confuse or pass over the heads of the ordinary reader (I count myself in this group). The ability to see this is not akin to understanding it, but it’s fairly obvious that there are many hidden meanings in the story. Certain passages are metaphors for deeper understanding, e.g. Kafka has a “crow boy” who guides and prompts him, but the “crow boy” is his own subconscious mind telling him what he needs to know to survive.
If this all sounds rather mysterious to you then I have accomplished what I set to do with my review. It’s one of the hardest book reviews I have attempted but isn’t that what reading is all about?
I’m giving it the full five stars, not because it’s hailed as a “great book”, but because it made me think about what I was reading and whetted my appetite for more. Once you get past the first few pages and into the story it can become quite addictive. Just pass by what you feel to be to be too deep and enjoy the weird and wonderful story.
The Mundane Details.
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The retail price is £7.99 but shopping around you can pick this up for £6.39 new, or about £3 for nearly new. At 505 pages it’s a long read (a two-day marathon for me.) Since it’s a very new book I’ll be waiting a while for the price to drop before I add it to my extensive library. In the meantime I’ll be looking out for earlier books by this author, I think I’ve been missing out on a master storyteller of the surreal.
Thanks for reading.
Lisa.
Summary: A book to appeal to most people.
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