“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.”

A runaway fifteen-year-old.
A mysterious phenomenon in the woods.
An old man who can talk to cats.
A search for a lost mother and sister.
An Oedipal curse.

Kafka on the Shore is comprised of two interrelated plots.

Kafka Tamura is a fifteen-year-old who runs away from his father. After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming Oshima. And then, things start becoming a bit more complicated, as he tries to shake off a curse from the past.



Meanwhile, there is the story of Nakata: an old simple-minded man with a gift that allows him to make a living searching for lost cats. Then one particular cat-case brings him out of Nakano Ward in Tokyo, travelling for the first time. On the way he meets a truck driver called Hoshino, who becomes his sidekick on his adventures.



Dark, yet funny, and also deeply thought-provoking at times, this is the book that actually made me truly appreciate Murakami's brand of surrealism. Oh and there's talking cats and fishy precipitation. Can't top that!



Happy reading!