Jeff's Reviews > Kafka on the Shore

Really?
What just happened? Who? What? I’m sorry, what?

This is how it starts:
“You’re going to love this book.” Someone says to someone else. “I loved this book, and I know you’re going to love this book.”

Someone said this to my friend, and she read the book, and she thought, “eh.”

But there were more people out there. They love this book! This book is the book that will change everything! If they were to build a time machine and travel back in time with several copies of this book, and if they were to give copies of this book to Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael then there would be absolutely no problems in the Middle East. There would be no homeless. Unicorns would run free through fields of grass. We’d all have universal health care.

“A friend of mine gave me this book. Matt really likes this book. Joe really likes this book. I thought it was ‘eh’. But maybe you’ll like it.” She said as she handed me the book.

So I read it. And I’m inclined to agree with the woman who gave it to me. It’s “eh”. Kafka is a young kid looking for something that’s been missing in his life. It maybe his mother, but that’s really just a metaphor. Then there’s this simpleton old man who can talk to cats. Then there’s this secret world in the mountains. Then there’s a magical stone. Then Godzilla, then a comet hits Mars and we all grow a third arm. I felt as if the story spiraled out of control, maybe. I think part of the problem is that Karuki Murakami doesn’t write in English, and I can’t read Japanese, and while I’m sure Philip Gabriel is a perfectly nice man, and can translate Japanese into English perfectly well, I still felt like there was something lost in the translation while reading the book. So, IF I were to suggest you read this book, I would first suggest you learn to read Japanese, then maybe spend some years in Japan. Then read the book. Then write me and tell me what you thought of it. Cause for me- it’s a little too metaphor-y, and at the end of the book, all I could think was, “Really?”