Author: Haruki Murakami
Original Publication Date: 467
Pages: 2002
Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism
Crazy.
Legit crazy.
But compelling riveting crazy.
I guess it is only with Murakami that the reader will experience a philosophically charge Hegel quoting prostitute, a spectral discount-giving pimp, pragmatic talking cats, a retelling of the oedipal Greek tragedy through a schizophrenic reincarnated personality, an unfathomable leech-filled-rain commanding simpleton, all bizarrely intended to constitute an introspective metaphorically peppered coming of age story, keeping you at a sublime reverie the entire time, if not devouring its pages, the voracity of which the world has never seen.
Everything I liked about this books concerns the style.
He doesn't provide much detail but gives you irrefragable operative truths in his written work, the rational closure-seeking mind may not find a welcome place here.
The prose is lyrical and the transitions are fluid. But for all its beauty and fluidity, the reader does not know where he is being drawn, you have faint gleamings of the story but that is all you are afforded.
The other aspect I loved was the narration. The omniscient narrator suddenly changes tone by directly addressing the reader.
"...you say, i forgive you. And audibly, the frozen part of your heart crumbles (398)"
A technique used by Italo Calvino in If on a winter's night a traveler and masterfully by Saramago in some of his prose. In both instances, the effect was that the reader was made part of the narrative, it was as if it removed objective barriers between that of the reader and the story. The same riveting interactive effect made me care more about Kafka, it made me connect more with the story.
Any reservation I have towards this book concerns the weird crazy sexual encounters Murakami wrote.
Crazy.
Legit crazy.
But compelling riveting crazy.
I have reviewed other books by Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance (3 Stars)
Norwegian Wood (2 Stars)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle(2 Stars)
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