"A stunning work of art," the New York Observer wrote of The Wind-Up
Bird Chronicle, "that bears no comparisons," and this is also true of
this magnificent new novel, which is every bit as ambitious, expansive
and bewitching. A tour-de-force of metaphysical reality, Kafka on the
Shore is powered by two remarkable characters. At fifteen, Kafka Tamura
runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to
search for his long-missing mother and sister. And the aging Nakata, who
never recovered from a wartime affliction, finds his highly simplified
life suddenly upset. Their odyssey, as mysterious to us as it is to them,
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 fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with
the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle. Yet this, like
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.

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