Reviews with content warning for Rape - Kafka on the Shore

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

557 reviews

ghast's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

raeofsunshyne's review against another edition

2.5

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

lotteaibi's review against another edition

3.5

mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

hornsounder's review against another edition

0.25

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I've seen this book described as a dreamlike experience and I agree, in that it is like being told someone else's dream in excruciating detail. This is really a "things happen" book and I mean that in the worst way. Not a single character exhibits agency, especially not Kafka. Events happen to the characters with little to no input on their end. When they do actually do things, the reasons behind it is invariably accompanied with the text telling us that it was as if a nebulous force was controlling their actions. The character's talk about fate and Greek tragedies but none of it works because characters are just being moved from place to place with no more motive than a Barbie doll being moved about her dreamhouse. Instead, those conversations (which are all unbearably pretentious) seem more like the author is trying to infuse the text with some deep meaning. It doesn't work, it just made me hate this stupid characters. There's a constant horniness to the book that's deeply off-putting. Sure, there's times where it's clearly meant to come off that way but more often it is a veneer of juvenile comments about genitalia.

Content Warnings

mcsuggett's review against another edition

2.0

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

rockettemorton's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

There's so much to love about this book. How Murakami blends inexplicable surealist events into very authentic scenarios. How the characters are unseemly peculiar but oh so loveable. How those characters, despite their flaws and oddities, are so consistently them. And how they bleed out of the page, soaking my shirt. How it seems so long in hindsight but flies by; countless interesting and crucial things happen throughout. Frankly, I'm surprised he fit it all into 500 pages and still had the ride feeling very laid-back most of the time. I love how when it isn't laid-back, it becomes one of the most intense and gripping stories. How the various mysteries and unexplained supernatural events keep you interested. And how it was entirely satisfying not to get an answer to the majority of them. How when an answer was given, it usually came with a myriad of new questions attached. How the story was neatly tied up, with closure and everything. And how I, despite that, want a sequel just to spend another couple hundred pages with Kafka and Hoshino. How

the story of Kafka is a modernization of the Oedipus myth and how it is even mentioned in the book – the literature passion allows for some neat direct references. And how the prophecy is fulfilled through dreams, metaphors and hypotheses

which so lovely ties into the themes of those very things.

Content Warnings

louiseimaquarium's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

I liked this one so much? It's sweet, dark and surreal at times, but every character besides Kafka himself was incredibly interesting to read about. Some parts were disturbing like

when he literally sleeps with his mother and rapes his sister

but I loved Nakata, Oshima, and especially Hoshino. Though I feel like the ending solved not all the mysteries that I was expecting to be solved by then. But I honestly did not feel bored once, and even if I did, seconds later there would be fish falling from the sky. Or someone talking to a cat. Just the usual.

Content Warnings