rockettemorton 's review for:

Kafka på stranden by Haruki Murakami
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.
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