Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

For a long time, I have been obsessed with the idea of Haruki Murakami without actually having read any of his works. I like how he’s the bestselling translated writer in America. I like his books’ titles. I like the covers. I like their descriptions. I LOVE his website. I so badly wanted to be the kind of person who reads Murakami. But it wasn't until this April that I finally read anything of his. I brought Kafka on the Shore with me on our trip to Asia, and I was able to finish most of it on our many plane flights, including ones coming in and out of Nagoya, Japan. Its Amazon description is incredibly apt in my case:

“The opening pages of a Haruki Murakami novel can be like the view out an airplane window onto tarmac. But at some point between page three and fifteen--it's page thirteen in Kafka On The Shore--the deceptively placid narrative lifts off, and you find yourself breaking through clouds at a tilt, no longer certain where the plane is headed or if the laws of flight even apply.”

When I had finished, I still loved the idea, but I wasn’t so sure about the actual book. The writing is certainly beautiful, the characters are wonderful, and the mysterious plot is intriguing. Everything was great, but… I constantly felt like I didn’t get it, I didn’t know what the point was, and I found it hard to care. I had the same problem with the Murakami short stories I subsequently read. What’s the problem? Why do I love Nabakov and DeLillo but not Murakami?

Last week, I looked up “magical realism” and some things became clear. Now I know that just because I like Nabakov doesn’t mean I have to like Murakami. According to Wikipedia, “magical realism often overlaps or is confused with other genres and movements,” such as postmodernism. “Magical realism is often considered a subcategory of postmodern fiction due to its challenge to hegemony and its use of techniques similar to those of other postmodernist texts, such as the distortion of time.”

Now it also makes sense that I didn’t like Love in the Time of Cholera or Like Water for Chocolate either. Fantastical things that happened in these stories didn’t make any sense to me, but more importantly, didn’t please me the way other postmodern disconnects do. Some things that scramble my brain make me feel good despite, or because of, the way they don’t follow traditional rules. Magical realism, on the other hand, usually leaves me baffled.

I had an epiphany: I don’t like magical realism!

I’m so relieved it wasn’t something more serious. Now I can give up my Murakami obsession.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

tags: books book reviews magical realism Haruki Murakami