haruki murakami's kafka on the shore
man, i love murakami. i mean, not unconditionally. i like some of his books much more than others. i loved this one up until the end, when it sort of trailed off a little. parts of it really worked, but some of it felt a little bit forced to me. still, being murakami, it's better than a lot of other books i've read recently. it's mainly about a 15-year-old boy who runs away from home, renaming himself "kafka" in the process. he's sort of hunting for his mother and sister, who left home when he was four, but mostly just trying to escape his father, who has cursed him oedipus-style. meanwhile, an old man who once fell into a mysterious coma and, when he regained consciousness, had lost his entire memory and never did manage to re-learn to read and is now pretty much a total innocent (who talks to cats) gets tangled up in some crazy stuff and soon his path and kafka's start to intersect. the story is told in alternating chapters (a la hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world, which brings up all sorts of possible symbolism), although there is one totally out of place chapter at the very end. the story didn't go where i expected it to go, whcih isn't a bad thing, but i think i was hoping for a little more resolution for kafka. still, i don't think this book merits all the mediocre reviews i've been seeing; i did quite like it (and i adored the old man's road trip with the trucker especially).
jordon here.
ReplyDeleteso i really like murakami's short stories. his style reminds me of raymond carver. like carver, he can do deadpan really well. but a friend loaned me a murakami novel called "dance, dance, dance" and i didn't like it at all. kind read like a philip k. dick imitation, which is totally different than the spare style of carver. is there one you think i might like better, more in the carver vein?
my favorite murakami is hard-boiled wonderland, but i've never read any carver so i can't really say if it's carver-esque. it's very different than his other novels--some of which, honestly, blend together in my mind. wild sheep chase and wind up bird chronicle both have a noir feel but i think are kind of similar to dance, dance, dance, so i'm a little hesistant to recommend them. sputnik sweetheart is along those same lines as well. i recall liking south of the border, west of the sun . . . anyway, i have all his books and can lend you some if you're interested. a lot of people love wind-up bird chronicle so maybe that's a good place to start.
ReplyDeletei think all of his books are couched in similarities to carver, though, b/c he has translated most of carver's work into japanese.
carver writes like hemingway. but i felt like dance dance dance was like some japanese garage band covering an elvis song: lots of heart, lots of competence, but just not that good. yeah, i'll check out wind up bird chronicle--the cover is great.
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