Book Review : Kafka on the Shore

I've read some of Murakami's work and in my opinion, this is the best. I will not try to decipher what he's trying to say in this book since what he wrote in his books are too profoundly weird that anyone can interpret it differently. All I'm going to say is that he really has a style in writing about life, love and death in such a lonely way.

Hoshino:

As long as I was alive, I was something. That was just how it was. But somewhere along the way it all changed. Living turned me into nothing. Weird...People are born in order to live, right? But the longer I've lived, the more I've lost what's inside me - and ended up empty. And I bet the longer I live, the emptier, the more worthless, I'll become. Something's wrong with this picture. Life isn't supposed to turn out like this! Isn't it possible to shift direction, to change where I'm headed?

This is my book of the year.


You sit at the edge of the world,
I am in a crater that's no more.
Words withour letters
Standing in the shadow of the door.

The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,
Little fish rain down from the sky.
Outside the window there are soldiers,
Steeling themselves to die.

Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,
Thinking of the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.
When your heart is closed,
The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx
Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.

The drowning girl's fingers
Search for the entrance stone, and more.
Lifting the hem of her azure dress,
She gazes -
At Kafka on the shore.

-Kafka On The Shore

[Update (16/02/2006)] I'm retracting my statement that said that this is book is the best Murakami that I've read. I had a long debate and discussion that spanned a few months talking about this book and I realise that this book is not the best. It doesn't have a really strong ending and there's too many things put inside it. I can't say this book sucks but just not the best. Don't blame me, blame Fie :p