Kafka on the Shore ~ Haruki Murakami

This was a wonderful read, and I can thoroughly recommend it.  There was not one character in the novel that I didn’t like. 

The parallel stories of Kafka and Mr Nagata are, whilst riveting, totally different from one another. Fifteen year old Kafka’s father tells him that he (Kafka) would murder him, and ‘be’ with his mother and sister (who had both left when he was just a small boy), this is the same as the Oedipus curse in the Greek legend.  Kafka does not want to fulfill this prophecy and so he runs away from home, but it all plays out against his will anyway. 

  

Mr Nagata’s storyline is just wonderful.  He can talk to cats and his quest is so mysterious that even he doesn’t really know what it is until he’s in the right spot or the right thing happens.  Along the way he becomes friends with Hishino, a young truck driver, and due to Nagata’s resemblance to Hoshino’s grandfather he decides to help him. There is a lot of subtle humour between these two characters which really brings a smile to your face.  Hoshino is a really nice laid back young man, and Mr Nagata has quite a profound life changing effect on him.

The story shifts between the two characters, with Mr Nagata's being the more complex as there is the added mystery of what happened to him as a child.  Kafka's storyline is beautifully written, it’s mystical and poetic and I loved the way the narration occasionally shifted perspective.

This will probably be the read of the year for me, alongside A Prayer for Owen Meany.