Listen free for 30 days
-
Kafka on the Shore
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Audible Membership
$14.95 a month
Buy Now for $48.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Buy it with
-
Norwegian Wood
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over four million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.
-
-
Compelling Story
- By Pascal.V on 2018-12-02
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- A Novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat - and then for his wife as well - in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists.
-
-
Unfortunate voicing
- By Ed White on 2018-01-14
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
1Q84
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
-
-
Bechdel Test Fail
- By Greg C. on 2020-08-20
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Across two parallel narratives, Murakami draws listeners into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.
-
-
Great, but..
- By St. Thomas on 2021-01-12
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
Killing Commendatore
- A Novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 28 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna.
-
-
Adore Murakami but Kirby was annoying
- By Team Awesomeness on 2019-09-09
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
- A novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Bruce Locke
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The new novel - a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan - from the internationally acclaimed author, his first since IQ84. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.
-
-
Another narrator is much needed!!!
- By Melanie Leefa on 2018-09-26
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
Norwegian Wood
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over four million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.
-
-
Compelling Story
- By Pascal.V on 2018-12-02
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- A Novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat - and then for his wife as well - in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists.
-
-
Unfortunate voicing
- By Ed White on 2018-01-14
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
1Q84
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
-
-
Bechdel Test Fail
- By Greg C. on 2020-08-20
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Across two parallel narratives, Murakami draws listeners into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.
-
-
Great, but..
- By St. Thomas on 2021-01-12
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
Killing Commendatore
- A Novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 28 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna.
-
-
Adore Murakami but Kirby was annoying
- By Team Awesomeness on 2019-09-09
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
- A novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Bruce Locke
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The new novel - a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan - from the internationally acclaimed author, his first since IQ84. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.
-
-
Another narrator is much needed!!!
- By Melanie Leefa on 2018-09-26
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
South of the Border, West of the Sun
- A Novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Eric Loren
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1951 in an affluent Tokyo suburb, Hajime - beginning in Japanese - has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, and an enviable career as the proprietor of two jazz clubs. Yet a nagging sense of inauthenticity about his success threatens Hajime's happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.
-
-
Such a disappointment
- By Graeme on 2019-12-01
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
A Wild Sheep Chase
- A Novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an advertisement. What he doesn't realize is that included in the scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man who offers a menacing ultimatum: Find the sheep or face dire consequences.
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
Men Without Women
- Stories
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders, and even Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In Men Without Women, Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humor and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Nuria on 2018-03-20
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
After Dark
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
Earthlings
- A Novel
- Written by: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.
-
-
NOT what you expect
- By Anonymous User on 2022-07-21
Written by: Sayaka Murata
-
Dance Dance Dance
- A Novel
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum - translator
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As he searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Haruki Murakami's protagonist plunges into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread in which he collides with call girls, plays chaperone to a lovely teenaged psychic, and receives cryptic instructions from a shabby but oracular Sheep Man. Dance Dance Dance is a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride through the cultural Cuisinart that is contemporary Japan, a place where everything that is not up for sale is up for grabs.
-
-
Surprisingly One Dimensional
- By M. Raike on 2022-01-23
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
Underground
- The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin, Ian Anthony Dale, Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.
-
-
Insightful look at a tragic incident
- By Roberta W on 2022-05-29
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion
- Written by: Yukio Mishima
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A hopeless stutterer, taunted by his schoolmates, Mizoguchi feels utterly alone until he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto. But he quickly becomes obsessed with the temple's beauty, and cannot live in peace as long as it exists.
-
-
Shallow then deep
- By Nate on 2020-07-14
Written by: Yukio Mishima
-
Sputnik Sweetheart
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her devotion to a writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments. At least, that is, until she meets an older woman to whom she finds herself irresistibly drawn. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, K is solicited to join the search party - and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous visions.
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
- Written by: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor, Ellen Archer
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 24 stories that make up Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman generously express the incomparable Haruki Murakami’s mastery of the form. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an ice man, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things for which we might wish. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit Murakami’s ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and entertaining.
Written by: Haruki Murakami
-
First Person Singular
- Stories
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Kotaro Watanabe
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the internationally acclaimed Haruki Murakami comes a mind-bending new collection of short stories, all touching beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory...all with a signature Murakami twist. The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world.
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
The Elephant Vanishes
- Stories
- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum - translator, Jay Rubin - translator
- Narrated by: Teresa Gallagher, John Chancer, Walter Lewis, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
Publisher's Summary
With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
This magnificent novel has a similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle - yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.
Extravagant in its accomplishment, Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world's truly great storytellers at the height of his powers.
What the critics say
More from the same
Author:
Narrator:
What listeners say about Kafka on the Shore
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Philpott MSW, MSc
- 2020-08-30
Quietly Mind-blowing
I am a huge fan of Murakami. I find all his writing intriguing but after reading Kafka on the Shore I am shocked to find it competing with the perfection of 1Q84 for number one in my heart. Unforgettable characters. Throat-grabbing stories. Mind-bending ideas that I will puzzle over in my dreams for some time to come. I will have to ask my neighbour’s cat to help me decide which one I love best.
I would highly recommend anything by Haruki Murakami and Kafka on the Shore is an excellent place to begin.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adriano Pereira
- 2020-09-07
One of the best books I have ever read!
This is an amazing book and an amazing narration as well. I can’t recommend this enough.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt S.
- 2022-03-30
Second favorite by the man
I really enjoyed this book, it was great with the two different narrators taking on the perspectives of the boy and the old man. It really reminded me a lot of killing commendatore and the dream world Haruki created in that novel.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- F. Toro
- 2022-01-15
A garbage book beautifully performed
I've come across books I didn't like before, of course, but this may be the first time I find myself actively considering a legal action for fraud, a kind of class-action lawsuit on behalf of readers against an author for deception, hackistry, and general shamelessness.
Let's be clear, Murakami's shtick is surely entertaining. He has a definite knack for keeping you inside the stories he crafts. There's atmosphere there, and it can be kind of nice, and enticing, especially when the performances are top notch as they are here.
But the illusion is kept up with a sad, threadbare metaphysics woven out of a pile of BS. This isn't entirely obvious if you don't pay close attention, or at least it isn't until Chapter 30 where, in a shocking an absolutely GALLING aside on Chekhov's gun, Murakami has one of his characters, Colonel Sanders, as good as TELL US that it's all BS. This is all couched in sophomoric mumbo jumbo about dramaturgy, and maybe you need to listen twice, but if you're paying attention he's telling you there quite plainly that none of his devices in fact mean anything, that no part of this whole house of cards is anything beyond a lazy, paper-thin performance of profundity, with insane plot devices constantly pulled out of his ass for the purpose of patching up the gaping holes in his plot with the least possible effort on his part.
It's appalling! The book is appalling! All the worse for being sort of superficially beguiling at first.
Murakami isn't a bad writer. But he *is* a fraud.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dantenor
- 2021-09-19
If you know Haruki murakami
I really like the way is was written. The characters and the plot is awesome as always with this amazing writer, i have to say it reminds me a little bit of other books from him. I would recommend this book to someone who has experience listening to audio books but just starting to like them, because I have to say it’s long but the story is very engaging.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2020-11-11
This book is such a good find
Always wanted to read this book but I'm too busy to read an actual book. Good thing it's on audible! Nice narration overall
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julia X
- 2020-11-02
Pretentious plot
The story about the young man is unmoving and pretentious; the story about the old man is moving and profound, especially the performance is superb. But overall it is overrated.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Perpetua
- 2020-08-30
Loved the message from one of the main characters
There were aspects of this story I loved and those I could do without. At any case it's a unique story you could some how relate to or at least wish you encounter such characters or situations.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ben Drexl
- 2020-04-22
A seemingly schizophrenic odyssey
I listened intently though the entire book, replaying when I missed things or needed clarification. The performances were fantastic and varied, and I was intrigued all the way through.
However, I found myself constantly wondering just what I was listening to... coming of age tale with taboo erotic undertones? Sci fi or alternate history novel? Alice-in-wonderland style head trip? Creature horror? Time travel, parallel universe, or occult fiction? Tragic tale of love lost? Or were all of these elements an intentional deconstruction of the medium itself? I still don't know.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer Dickinson
- 2014-09-14
Wonderful Story, Perfectly Read
What made the experience of listening to Kafka on the Shore the most enjoyable?
The readers were amazing and so perfectly captured the characters. They turned a great story into a transcendent experience.
Who was your favorite character and why?
So hard to say, but probably Nakata. Although he is supposed to be a simpleton, he has a particular genius for living the life he is given and being happy with what he has.
Which scene was your favorite?
My favorite scene is when Miss Saiki tells Kafka he has to go back to the world to remember her.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Absolutely. This is a very philosophical and emotional story. I cried in all the right places and laughed out loud at its wry wit. Loved it. Will definitely listen again.
19 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dr. Curmudgeon
- 2014-04-11
What's better than Murakami? More Murakami
If I've been propelled through life by a continuously variable transmission, reading Murakami is like moving to a stick shift. And this is certainly an prime example of that.
Murakami makes you shift your perspective. Nothing as trivial as alternate universes (although he did use those in 1Q84), but more of a radical shift in how you perceive and model reality. If there is such a thing.
Many of Murakami's books take you to places that just require you to relinquish all control of your rationality. This one's a bit easier on you, having more of a standard narrative. It's only in the deeper contemplation of the story that you tend to lose your footing.
This book is all about deep emotion, how emotion defies all logic and reason, and how it is at the very core of our existence. In this respect, it's a surprisingly uplifting and empowering book, which is, to me, pretty good for what may look like simple storytelling.
39 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 2016-08-06
I'm finally done. Finally.
Good narrator. Hard to recommend this book for a couple reasons.
On the low ground: The story drags. Conflict resolution is about the quality of vending machine food. Some parts lack any feeling, while others are overbearing with emotions. Complete randomness and poor plot devices.
On the middle ground: There are some taboo moral and social ideals present that are not commonly approached in writing. Some parts are left void of detail for you to draw your own conclusions.
On the high ground: Back stories are executed with skill. There are some great tie-ins to philosophy and art that strengthen the story. There is a scattering of moments that feel genuinely life-like.
Overall, the misgivings of the story cause it to constantly toe the line between introspection and exhaustion. This book may simply not be my type and could be yours, but I believe I've given an honest opinion of it here.
30 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 2018-06-07
Done with Murakami for awhile
Kafka is my 3rd Murakami title and probably the one I liked best. So why am I done with Murakami for now? It has to do with how he handles the final act. In Wild Sheep Chase, Wind-up Bird, and now Kafka... he does a great job (albeit slow at times as others have mentioned) of putting together an interesting tapestry of characters and situations. Building up a storyline that compels you to listen for just a bit longer. Sometimes extremely mysterious characters are introduced, that have you wondering throughout the book how their story or influence will play a role in what's to come. But Murakami doesn't care. Perhaps they will come back and play a role. Perhaps they won't. It's not until that final page when we make the realization that the interesting character or storyline that we wanted to fully understand will forever remain a mystery. Sure, there's a basic storyline resolution usually with the lead character reaching a new level of self understanding, but just as many loose ends and questions will remain a mystery.
For me, that's not enough payoff for the investment of time. Time to find another author.
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lupe Bananas
- 2017-12-05
Wow!
I’m not sure how to review this book. There was time travel, dream sequences, flashbacks, a man who could talk to cats, friendships and rock that opened doors... some descriptions were a little long and a bit too much sex, but overall I really enjoyed the book. Haven’t read anything like it before.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- bleadof
- 2016-10-04
Love it!
Both of the voice actors bring all the characters brilliantly alive with their performances. The nuances of the language and simple elegance of the dialogue is not wasted, but cherished. I wholeheartedly recommend this reading of the book.
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane
- 2016-12-14
Kafka on the Shore
Excellent .Very well developed main characters. I didn't want the book to end. Performance of the two narrators was wonderful.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Douglas
- 2016-05-25
Hauntingly Surreal...
and enthralling. A must experience from the Japanese Kakfa.Among his best work. Mature writing from an accomplished author
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amy Dinaburg
- 2015-07-07
Great narration, beautifully crafted story
Very weird plot but charming in its way. I enjoyed this. I couldn't give 5 stars because it didn't blow me away. However, there is a philosophy lesson in every chapter and much of it reads like poetry. The ending was just okay but, in this book, it's really all about the journey.
9 people found this helpful