Jimmy Phelps

I’ve read several of Murakamis books ranging from very good (Norwegian Wood) to awful (IQ84). This one is somewhere in the middle. On the plus side, it captures his excellent and somewhat dreamlike prose style and it gives you a fair bit to think about. On the down side, it touches on weird metaphysical time bending themes, which have the potential to be interesting but aren’t fully explained and leave a lot more questions than answers. A lot of it also borders on the bizarre and completely random. For example, why Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders? Why cats? Why & when did Kafkas father make his odd incestuous prediction about his mother and sister? Entrance stone? What? Why? On some of the key central ideas in the book: There was no explanation of the link between Nakata and Kafkas actions or how certain characters could possibly be Kafkas long lost relatives. Like I said, lots of questions with no logical answers. The best attempt could be “it’s all a dreamlike tapestry” which is hardly very satisfactory! This book clearly explores themes, such as time portals and alternate reality, which were fully developed in IQ84. For me IQ84 is Murakamis worst work (that I have read) and could best be described as “overlong dross”. KafkaOTS also mimics the style of IQ84 with the alternate and seemingly unconnected narratives alternating each chapter. But like IQ84 I found this device tacky and serving to break up the flow of the story especially in the last quarter of the book. On the positive side the Kafka narrative was engaging and the most of the characters on both sides were likeable. There was something clever going on with the village in the forest and the Japanese soldiers who were trapped in time - I couldn’t work out what though! A 2.75 out of 5 (rounded up to 3)