Review - ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Book - Kafka on the shore
Author- Haruki Murakami
Genres- Fiction, Psychological Fiction
Pages - 504
Kafka on the shore was originally written in Japanese by @harukiimurakami and later translated into English by Philip Gabriel, and both wirter and translator has done their part of work beautifully. The writing style of this book is very attractive and language used is also simple. It was my first book by Murakami. And I must say the imagination of Murakami is nice but at the same time it is strange. There are many things in book which you may not like but still I would suggest you to read this book. And once you start reading this book, it is hard to keep away this book from you. There are two stories running parallel in starting.
This is story of a boy Kafka Tamura who is just 15 year old , his father has given him prophecies and 'to avoid this curse, to live life on his own term' he ran away from home.
Another story is starting when a teacher took a group of 16 students to a field trip to a mountain, and suddenly one by one every student of group lost their consciousness except teacher. Later, after two hours everybody gets to normal except one student, and that is Nakata. He lost all his memories even ability to read and write. But now he is able to talk with cats.
Story of his life again starting at age of 70. Now he is living on government's subcity and money he gets from finding lost cats and returning to their homes.
One thing I like about this book, both Nakata and Kafka were not helped by their own people but, from them who were not related to them.
There's so much to talk about this book, but could not. So give it a read.
One of quote of this book:
Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear apart
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.
