The New Canon: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami - Page 3

Then we have Miss Saeki, manager of the private library where Kafka takes refuge. She also seems to be running away from something, and the loose ends of her enigmatic past may hold the solution to the runaway’s own personal tragedy. Along the way, we encounter a rogue’s gallery of magical personae drawn from consumer goods — such as Colonel Sanders and Johnny Walker — who play some of the strangest cameo roles you will find anywhere in contemporary fiction.

The end result is a novel of constantly shifting ground. At times, Kafka on the Shore takes on the overtones of Greek tragedy, but then a short while later it seems to plunge into the murky world of Jungian archetypes. It mixes Bildungsroman and fantasy and conventional urban narratives into a strange combination that defies the reader’s best attempt to categorize and pigeonhole. In short, this is Murakami territory, a beguiling landscape that only exists inside his visionary novels, and which is realized with particular intensity in Kafka on the Shore.

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.

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