A review by trilbynorton
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

1.0

I went into this with high hopes, having read Murakami's 1Q84 and enjoyed the author's mixture of everyday mundanity and surreal fantasy. But I was sorely disappointed by Kafka on the Shore. I can't tell if it's the English translation or Murakami's style in this book, but I found the prose and dialogue agonisingly awkward to read. Dull descriptions of characters' every action sit alongside cod philosophy. One character says "man alive" and "Jeez Louise" more than any actual human being has ever said those phrases, and the rest of the dialogue is equally tone deaf. And it's a bizarrely sexual book, with several embarrassing sex scenes, one of them literally incestuous, which were supposed to think is fine, apparently. There's an excruciating scene featuring shrill feminist stereotypes, and one instance of graphic animal cruelty which serves no narrative purpose. This is clearly supposed to a profound coming of age story, but whatever meaning the book has is lost beneath clunky writing and forced quirkiness.