Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

I must say again that Murakami is my favorite author. I like his style of writing and the way he moves the plot along and how he always adds an element of the spiritual or surreal. It's so obviously a parallel to the main character's mind but because he turns the inner turmoil/conflict into reality, it makes his novels that much more compelling to read.

I really liked Kafka on the Shore. If you simply look at the overall plot and character development, in the end, it really isn't much else than a coming-of-age novel. However, Murakami always adds in the surreal and the metaphorical and that's what really made the novel. I generally don't like really obvious metaphors and obvious conclusions (which this book had both) but it really didn't detract away from the overall quality of the novel itself. I feel like this novel had more of a sense of "completeness" than some of his other novels in the sense that the change that Kafka Tamura goes under is very clear and there's a very definitive what's-going-to-happen-next after he works out his feelings and inner conflicts. Everything works toward an end and again, it really added to the overall quality of the reading.

I'm not sure if I would put this with my "favorite" novels simply because the plot by itself isn't all that interesting. In the end it was a good read and I like how Murakami always has this interesting characters (Oshima and Nakato) that affect the main character in some way or another. Even Hoshino was interesting, even if he was somewhat of a normal character. I liked him because he was rough but had a nice-guy attitude about him.

I would recommend this book to others but again, the plot is somewhat typical so I would simply warn against that. Otherwise, a good, interesting, light read. Not sure if I would ever pick this book up again unless I was bored.

[aside]

I re-read my review of Dance, Dance, Dance and I realize that this book overturns everything I complained about. The plot is different, the main character isn't dealing with depression, there's no death (until the end of the novel) and the movement and everything about the novel is pretty different. There's still that seclusion away from society (which I'm starting to see as Murakami's way of helping the character achieve some kind of realization) but I see the logic in that. There's again, the stylistic similarity but I suppose that's what makes his work uniquely his, right? Hm. In the end, I would like to see him do something different, both plot and character-wise. I feel like he's capable of it, it's just a matter of whether he'd do it or not.

On a completely different note, I would like to eventually get good enough at Japanese to read the original. I feel like there are some things that probably aren't translating (I'm sure the translations themselves are really good, it's just that many things get lost in translation from a cultural point of view...).