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gioppleganger 's review for:
Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami
I have been rereading this title for 3 times.
During my years in high school where I was binging all Murakami's works, Kafka on the Shore had a special place in my heart. It was exciting, surreal, intriguing, everything I had never encountered before in a fiction. The scene where fish started falling from the sky was probably the one I would always remember for years to come. All the oddities and extremities really fascinated me as a book enthusiast in high school. Having been reading many Asian literatures created by writers from my own country who incorporated local cultures I am more accustomed to, Murakami was a breath of fresh air and an entryway to East Asian literature for me.
Second time reading was during my college year, the melancholia and nostalgia hit hard during that time. Kafka's lonely journey resonated with me as I was reading it inside an empty bus to the middle of nowhere, far from home, far from the culture I grew accustomed to.
Third time reading during my time working from home in the middle of a lockdown, this time it fell short. I grew up, I became pragmatic, I tried to connect the dots between one thing to the other and kept searching for the same feeling that I could vividly experience during my previous readings. I desperately tried to search and identify the feeling I once had reading the book, to no avail. I enjoyed it nonetheless but there was a void of not feeling the same way I used to reading this.
There is no use to incorporate logic into this title. It is meant to be surreal and magical and a bit nihilistic just like that. Three times reading this title, and it always gave me a totally different sentiment each time. One book that can amaze, fascinate, intrigue, and repulse a reader sounds like an amazing experience to me.
During my years in high school where I was binging all Murakami's works, Kafka on the Shore had a special place in my heart. It was exciting, surreal, intriguing, everything I had never encountered before in a fiction. The scene where fish started falling from the sky was probably the one I would always remember for years to come. All the oddities and extremities really fascinated me as a book enthusiast in high school. Having been reading many Asian literatures created by writers from my own country who incorporated local cultures I am more accustomed to, Murakami was a breath of fresh air and an entryway to East Asian literature for me.
Second time reading was during my college year, the melancholia and nostalgia hit hard during that time. Kafka's lonely journey resonated with me as I was reading it inside an empty bus to the middle of nowhere, far from home, far from the culture I grew accustomed to.
Third time reading during my time working from home in the middle of a lockdown, this time it fell short. I grew up, I became pragmatic, I tried to connect the dots between one thing to the other and kept searching for the same feeling that I could vividly experience during my previous readings. I desperately tried to search and identify the feeling I once had reading the book, to no avail. I enjoyed it nonetheless but there was a void of not feeling the same way I used to reading this.
There is no use to incorporate logic into this title. It is meant to be surreal and magical and a bit nihilistic just like that. Three times reading this title, and it always gave me a totally different sentiment each time. One book that can amaze, fascinate, intrigue, and repulse a reader sounds like an amazing experience to me.