Horror Book Reviews

Compare at: $15.00 (New)
Buy Now: $10.20 (New)

You Save: $4.80 (32%)

Add to Cart

Title: Kafka on the Shore
Score:
Author: Haruki Murakami
Rating: Not available
Hits: 105

Review of Kafka on the Shore

[ Back to Homepage | Back to Horror Book Reviews Index ]

HellHorror.com not responsible for reviews/comments and they may be removed at any time.

Comments for Kafka on the Shore

• Posted on 2009-09-17
  Surrealism or Real Madness?
  
  On the advice of an author (her last name is `Hospital'). I started reading Haruki Murakami's novel "Kafka on the Shore." She had advised emerging writers to read book translations from languages other than English to experience different voice. I had not read any of the novels by this author.
  The book began on a high note. A 15 year old school boy runs away from his house and travels to another city in Japan. He hated school. But I suddenly found another story starting in the next chapter. A group of school boys while collecting mushrooms in the forest lose consciousness for a while but then wake up fine. So I thought this book may have some element of science fiction. Or the author would come up with an explanation in some future chapter. But no explanation ever comes.
  Then there is a third story of a cat talker. An old man dies in an apartment and a wriggling animal crawls out of his mouth. You never know what's the significance.
  A ghost of a fifteen year old girl lives in the body of a 51 year old woman.
  Two soldiers missing from World War 2 live in a forest without aging. In some other dimension there is a township inside a forest.
  And there is some entrance stone which needed to be turned upside down.
  Aren't all these things interesting? Reader continues to read because of the belief that issues will be connected and resolved in the end. And when it did not happen I felt cheated.(I finished this book to learn a valuable lesson of 'how not to write')
  And you would think the three stories would merge in a coherent story at some point early in the book but doesn't occur till the end of the book.
  This is a very poorly written book. Weren't there any editors to take a look at the prose before this book got published?
  Let me go here one by one.
  `I nodded' is a cliché. But is repeated so many (67 to be exact) times I got irritated. Another line in the dialogue repeated frequently is `Nakata is not very bright.' Well, readers are not suffering from dementia. Told once or twice, we would remember it, right? There is also a character that is shown to wear a Kunichi Football hat or take it off, all too often. It irritated me.
  `Self-editing for Fiction Writers' says - And when you explain dialogue that needs no explanation, you're writing down to your readers, a surefire way to turn them off. There are many scattered examples of poor dialogue in this book. Here's an example:
  `Yes, a little," Nakata replied.
  "Impressive all the same," tabby commented.
  ""My name is Nakata," Nakata said, introducing himself. "And your name would be?"
  "Ain't got one," the tabby said brusquely.
  And the improbable Kafka and Oshima (the librarian), both school drop outs discuss the kind of philosophy that would put Socrates and Plato to shame. Part of the latter part of the book feels like a kind of encyclopedia of music.
  Another repulsive piece of scene was when 15 year old Kafka asks a 51 year old woman to have sex with him (he knows she could be his mother) and she obliges him by getting laid at night.
  I was put off by this novel. Is there a possibility that this author's other novels might be good? I won't dare to find out.
  
  
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-09-11
  The most bloated, frustrating, self indulgent piece of crap I've ever read in my life.
  
  If you're a member of Gen-Y who thinks that the trippier and more nonsensical a piece of writing is the more profound its contents, then this book will be for you.
  This book was the biggest single waste of time I've ever encountered in my life. The only points a person with an eye for decent literature can gauge from reading this massive, steaming pile of crap is that you'll "sound" really hip if you say you've read it.
  I will say that from about page 100 on the plot became quite fascinating. (That is, if you can stomach the excruciating description of any and every minute detail of the protagonist's emo-tastic existence.) The fact that the story actually became interesting after that point is what angered me so much about the book. The author essentially used a bait and switch tactic to get you to believe that the plot was really going somewhere and then nothing. Dead stop. I wouldn't even call the ending an anti-climax. The reader is left with absolutely no idea of what happened or what will happen to the characters.
  From what I gathered from a Wikipedia article, Murakami himself admits the story was written as a riddle with the possibility of several different endings based on the reader's interpretation. But even then he seemed to imply that there is no solid solution. In my strong opinion, Kafka on the Shore was nothing but the author's 400+ page masturbatory obsession with his own writing.
  
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-09-04
  sweetly profound
  
  what a very complex concept, set in a complex environment but he's such a good writer that it really allows even the simplest of thinkers to identify well with the characters. There are consistent themes of love, lust, wonderment and a sense of belonging. Seriously, it's like it was written just for me. I struggle so deeply and much of kafka's troubles in dealing with the past almost help me see things differently in my life. even though the story twists around the idea of the oedipal complex, i feel like it was way beyond that into the intangible and into the sea of emotion and memories. dreaming for me has also been a lot more profound. the thoughts you are left with after reading this book are stuck with you for days moving into your sleep, just thinking and thinking about life and everything! my dreams are waking, but not as they used to be. I can't describe it really, but this story has touched me very deeply
  
  this was my first time reading murakami and I couldn't put this book down from the moment I started reading it. not even the same idea, really. he's such a fantastic writer and thinker, I want to read everything he's ever written.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-08-31
  It's easier to get into Murakami as a storyteller than as a philosopher
  
  The adjective inevitably attached to Haruki Murakami is "metaphysical." There certainly is some Hegel in Kafka on the Shore, delivered in the form of a lecture by a woman of the night after a "totally artistic act of [pleasuring a man]," and immediately after a quote from Henri Bergson. I'm told enrollment in philosophy Ph.D. programs shot through the roof, so to speak, after Kafka came out.
  
  It could be that I'm just not bright enough, but I didn't really grasp the metaphysics in Kafka on the Shore. I'm similarly mystified by the supposed depth of Paul Auster's writings; I love The New York Trilogy and Oracle Night but the philosophy in each seemed to me an excuse for laziness. We're moving along in three meta-mystery novels, when it turns out that the lens turns in on the detective. Or we're hiding in a dark basement, when the lens turns in on the protagonist. It's an excuse not to end a story while pretending that you have.
  
  Fortunately, I'm pretty sure that Murakami's supposed metaphysical genius says more about the laziness of book reviewers than it does about Murakami. Most of what makes Kafka on the Shore, and After Dark, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle enjoyable, is Murakami's facility as a storyteller. Wind-Up Bird is a constant tease, and so is Kafka on the Shore. We start Kafka with two my God, what the hell is happening stories which will play out, in parallel and intersecting ways, throughout the rest of the book. On the one side, we have a classroom full of Japanese children hiking off into the hills in 1944, as the country is being bombed to within an inch of its life. They reach a clearing and stop to take a break, and every one of them falls unconscious. Their teacher stands there, stunned, before racing back to her village to get help. All but one of those students regains consciousness within a couple hours. One of them falls into a coma and wakes up with an empty brain and with the ability to talk to cats. So ... that happened.
  
  In the present-day part of Kafka we meet the novel's namesake. He's running away from home for reasons unknown. We know it has something to do with his cruel, distant father, but that's about it. Kafka may be crazy; he certainly carries a disembodied voice, whom he calls "the boy named Crow," that talks to him sometimes. "Kafka," by the way, isn't his real name. He's chosen it as part of the new identity with which he sets out on the road.
  
  (Soon enough Kafka receives manual stimulation that seemingly comes from nowhere, thus furthering my hypothesis that Philip Roth made unexplained sexual favors, unaccompanied by reciprocation, respectable within "literary" novels. As the novel progresses, the manual stimulation makes a bit more sense, but I can't escape the suspicion that a lot of highbrow male authors think, "Unwarranted sexual climax? Don't mind if I do!")
  
  On one path, then, we have the brainless cat-talker (who, by the way, refers to himself exclusively in the third person: "Nakata needs to take a dump" and so forth). On the other we have a really interesting little kid, setting out into the world without much of a plan. He ends up in one of those ornate libraries specializing in obscure forms of literature; it's the only place where he can expect to be left alone as he formulates a plan for his next steps. He meets its librarian, Oshima, and its head, Miss Saeki. Everyone's got some terrible secret. Sometimes the secrets are actually nauseating. The story is always gripping.
  
  We flip back and forth between the two threads. They come closer together, and eventually the flipping happens every few pages. Murakami knows how to nail his dramatic pacing. You won't put this book down once you pick it up.
  
  By the end, a lot remains unanswered. I think that's almost a definition of a "Murakami novel", but somehow it's less frustrating here than in Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The storytelling more than makes up for any leftover plot holes. I'm unwilling to call Kafka "metaphysical," though. That word shouldn't just be a synonym for "vague."
  
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-07-28
  Master storyteller at his best.
  
  One of my favorite books of all time. Reading it may make you feel very random at parts and it may make no sense to some readers but Murakami's ability to keep you interested and turning to the next page is truly remarkable. I do highly recommend this book and some of his other works as well.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10