Kafka on the Shore-Murakami

In a world where men talk to cats and stones lead you into another dimension, Murakami has explored the purpose of our time on earth. While translated from Japanese, make no mistake; nothing was lost in translation. Kafka on the Shore is a bizarre tale of finding the love that humans innately crave. Murakami cleverly crafted his characters into links of the same chain. Throughout the novel we see the world from multiple eyes, yet each perspective is connected to another. For example, a fifteen year old runaway is connected to an old, mentally-impaired man who talks to cats. Other perspectives include that of a trucker with a troubled past, a widow who stopped living when her lover died, a transgender whose soul is struggling to live with a body that does not match the person they wish to be, the subconscious, and of two men that are neither men nor god—on earth in the forms of Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders.
Kafka on the Shore is not a novel for the light at heart. Characters struggle with a variety of issues including a prophecy that says a son will kill his father and sleep with his sister and mother, a twisted sense of redemption through animal sacrifice, and intimate sex scenes. Nor is it for readers that like to walk away from a novel with a clear concept of what the moral of the story was. Murakami tells the reader nothing concretely and leaves much to the individual to contemplate. The eccentric and intricate twists and turns that each character follows during the novel lead the reader to contemplate the existence and importance of life on earth and life beyond earth. Murakami has crafted a compelling novel for those who can handle the complexity of magical realism in conjunction with existentialism.