i bought this when it first came out in the ‘states two years ago. this was my first hardcover (not one for getting a tome when it is first published). for some bizarre reason, amazon took like 3 months to get it delivered. that was january 2005. i only started reading it february of this year.

if wind up was bizarre, kafka on the shore (海辺のカフカ) takes the cake for its surreal take on a tale about a person’s coming of age. kafka tamura, the 15-year old protagonist leaves home in order to free himself from the empty life he led with his sculptor father. he ends up in a library in a town in shikoku where he fell in love with the enigmatic miss saeki, fulfilling an oedipal prophecy made by his father many years ago. back in tokyo, an elderly illiterate man named nakata with no memory and the ability to speak with cats commits a heinous crime and leaves tokyo to fulfil a task that he knows he must perform. with assistance from a young truck driver, little did he know that his quest would lead him to the very same town in shikoku where kafka was.

without giving the story away, i felt in some way kafka on the shore was somewhat reminiscent of salinger’s catcher in the rye. murakami once again brilliantly weaves a story that is peppered with surreal dream-like segments: kafka’s subconscious/conscience as crow, the town in the depth of the forest as purgatory, every action of nakata having a knock on effect on kafka, and not forgetting the appearance of johnnie walker and colonel sanders. bizarre as this sounds, i found that the read was enjoyable regardless whether i made an in-depth analysis or not. just like my first murakami experience with wind up. or listening to pink floyd.

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on sunday, i had brunch comprising a meal i concocted that was inspired by nakata-san, involving some teriyaki sauce, leftover trout, peppers and eggs. i wondered how is it that breakfast in japan seemed quite heavy. only then i remembered that nasi lemak ain’t exactly muesli.

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currently reading jonathan safran foer’s extremely loud & incredibly close. i was laughing my guts out by page two. here’s hoping the laughs go all the way to the end.