Kafka On The Shore

[poliphilo]

Murakami restores my faith in the novel. It's not a worn out form, after all. There are still things to be done with it. New things.

I don't understand this book. I doubt if its writer understands it either. It's both a realist novel and a surpernatural thriller. It's meticulously observant of the texture of modern life and it's full of ghosts, demons,  Fortean phenomena and talking cats.  It's a bildungsroman and a vision quest.  

It's about the way we live now and the way we're going to live. Most contemporary novels, plays, films, TV shows reflect the sensibilities of the 19th and 20th centuries. This one belongs to the 21st.

Comments

[frankepi.livejournal.com]

You really have to read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. It's astonishingly good.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm going to- just as soon as I can get hold of a copy.