Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Japan, 1945:  A mysterious event injures a young boy and leaves an unnamed woman living with deep regrets.  Fast forward to modern Japan, a world with Walkmans and mobile phones.  Fifteen year old Kafka Tamura steals half a million Yen and runs away from home to look for his estranged mother and sister.  Meanwhile, Satoru Nakata lives in a nearby suburb of Tokyo.  He has the ability to talk to cats and makes his living by tracking down ones that have gone missing.

We follow the stories of Kafka and Nakata in alternating chapters, and as they move about Japan, their paths get ever closer.  The closer they get, the more extraordinary the events that overtake them become.

I read Murakami for the first time back in the late 80's.  I found his prose simple and his storytelling beguiling, and he has acquitted himself just as well with Kafka on the Shore. The half dozen or so characters are interesting, even likable.  The action is well-paced and the scenery is varied.  Many of the themes are universal.  No doubt about it, Murakami knows how to write a page-turner.

The major themes of Kafka on the Shore are the power that music and literature have to move us as human beings, our basic loneliness  and how we get by in the world, and the providential force of destiny.  Murakami uses the devices of magic realism to set out a vision of a benign world beyond our own mundane reality, one that will be our ultimate and welcoming home.

I don't want to say more as I fear I may spoil the many mysteries contained in the book.  If you like music, mystery and magic, then Kafka on the Shore may be your cup of tea. Be warned! There are some graphic descriptions of cruelty to cats.

Publishing Details: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Vintage, London, 2005)