Kafka on the Shore

Published on November 12, 2007

As always, Haruki Murakami has the reader mesmerised from the very first page of his book, this one a quest story dressed in the layers of Greek tragedy and modern allegory.

It follows the lives of two extraordinary characters. The 15-year-old Kafka Tamura is trying to find his mother and sister and to put distance between a life of empty luxury as well as an Oedipal curse placed on him by his father. In parallel chapters the elderly Nakata supplements his government "sub city" by finding lost cats.

Kafka finds shelter on his journey in a library run by the aloof Miss Saeki and the androgynously sterile Oshima. Meanwhile, Nakata's latest search for a lost feline leads him to a tall man with a top hat who eats cats' hearts and steals their souls to make a special flute.

It is clear that the lives of these two people are on a collision course and eventually they do meet, but only in the strangest of circumstances.

In this richly symbolic tale, Murakami touches upon the perpetual battle between good and evil, life and death, weaving them together with the power of fairytale, music and magical realism.

Topping off this strange brew are conversing cats, fish and leeches raining from the sky and a pimping Colonel Sanders. But the only way to get a real flavour is to pick up the novel, join Kafka on the shore and dive with him into the depths of this profound weirdness.

A brief word for the translator - he's done fine work in netting Murakami's strange fish.