Kafka On The Shore- Book Review

Kafka on the shore (2002) written by Haruki Murakami is a story about a 15 yr old boy who likes to call himself Kafka, the Japanese translation of crow. Kafka spends his childhood in an environment that no child would like to be in eventually making him to consider the need to abandon his childhood home forever.

The story starts with him escaping home, boy named crow said ‘remember you have to be the strongest 15 year old in the whole planet.’ Kafka heads Takamatsu where he is destined for something that his father had already cursed upon him. Kafka’s visit to a public library was ostensibly the result of his crave for reading but had a higher purpose to fulfill that is eventually found out along with the prose. Shortly after, his father was murdered by someone and his dubious assumption that he wasn’t the one, made him to believe, though hesitantly in the curse that his father tormented over him.

Murakami’s witty writing style leads to development of conflicting thoughts in readers mind. Nakata, the veteran of a strange event that also took his memory and made him as blank as a new born child, is a pertinent character throughout the book related to Kafka with one major similarity- They both are deferential to destiny and end up in the necromancing library. There is a lot of bizarre events going on all around with sensible talks with cats and century old soldiers emerging in the woods. Miss Saikei, the head librarian is somewhat another lovable character. With all her assets in order, she is placid and firm and happens to be the lost mother of Kafka, which he finds out for sure in their last talk. Kafka was also the name of her dead boyfriend, for whom she laments her whole life and would not mind perish which eventually she does, asking boy Kafka to love and remember her as she did her boyfriend, in allegories.

Murakami leaves no stone unturned in readers hearts, influencing all aspects of human awareness to limits- making it an indispensable book once you are into it.