Kafka on the Shore

Magical realism at its finest. To be completely honest with you, I have mixed opinions about this book but it would easily go under my all time favourite books – mainly for its writing style. As I had never read from Haruki Murakami before, I had no idea what I was expecting when I started reading it, despite all the hype about it I saw online, literally everywhere. And there were one too many times I asked myself what the heck I was reading. However, this did not keep me from getting from one page to another, from one chapter to too many later.

The only thing I found difficult about this book were the far-too-graphic descriptions of the far-too-vile events to my liking spread out through the book. This might be my first Japanese book as well so it might just be a culture shock but I can’t say I loved reading every bit of this. Apart from the sexual scenes, the cat scene destroyed me. As a cat lover myself, I strongly considered leaving the book aside somewhere, never to touch it again especially because of the Johnnie Walker scene as it was unnecessarily painful to witness. 

So I can say that what sold this book for me was the magical realism element on its entirety. It was very easy to get lost in this absurd world and I’m a big fan of writing styles that manage to captivate me – sadly many of them don’t do this. Despite everything I hated about this book, I ended up giving in and just accepting everything as they were. Resisting felt pointless. I have seen someone describing Murakami as a surrealist painter and that couldn’t be more true. He’s definitely strange but I guess that’s okay. Right?

Murakami’s writing style might feel a little messy at first with all the transitions from one thing to another, one emotion to another but as you get used to it, you kind of find yourself loving it. 

This part is entirely subjective but I personally don’t like endings that let the reader run with their imagination. I wish it had a more ‘proper’ ending. For such a negative review, it must feel a bit confusing how this book is one of my all time favourites but I’m sure you’ll understand why if you give it a go.