MURAKAMI- KAFKA ON THE SHORE, REVIEW

Ambiguous. Absurd. Brilliant. No miss. 

Murakami's Kafka on the Shore is a very ambiguous piece, with surreal concepts and 'indecipherable at one go' metaphors. Shore, as we understand is a borderline between two worlds (land and water). In 'Kafka on the shore', therefore, the shore (represented by a forest here) could be a term to represent the borderline between two different realms; the physical and the spiritual, and the back and forth journey of Kafka Tamura between these worlds. 

This whole story of Kafka on the Shore is based on a concept of 'living spirit' which means that a spirit can detach from its physical body and exist elsewhere while you are still alive, something like an astral projection. The concept of half shadows (the shadows of those whose physical body is present with them but their spirit is hovering elsewhere in search of something) is weirdly relatable. On some days, don't we all feel like devoid of the one thing that makes us a complete person, makes our shadow a whole. 

Besides this surreal world of dreams and reality there is also a whole different world of emotions. There is a story of loneliness, of people going beyond ways to find a way out of that web, of inevitable fate, of people trying to escape it anyway. There's a story of realization, of self discovery, of freedom, of unconventional bonds between the characters and of people's lives entwined together in the most bizarre ways. 

Kafka on the shore is a hard read but also too fascinating for you not to read it. Once you are done you feel a hollowness inside you, almost like you are pulled back into this world of reality but a part of you has been left at the Komura Memorial Library. Murakami has made sure of it.