Book Spotlight: Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami

Reading for the sake of reading makes you feel really unproductive and frustrated honestly.

However, I did continue my search for a book that I could lose myself in again. As you grow older, you may find yourself more interested in very different genres than the ones you’re used to, or you may find yourself drawn to a very specific style of writing.

I found my love for reading again upon stumbling across a book called Kafka By The Shore by Haruki Murakami. On one random day in the bookstore browsing through the Literary Fiction section, I came across this rather unusual title and decided to read the synopsis of it.

“Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what truly is a remarkable journey”

I had no idea how I felt about it, but I had one of those feelings in my gut that just told me to get it. So I did. It really was a remarkable journey.

Murakami has a way of writing that is so descriptive and precise, that you can almost feel yourself seep into the setting being described. You can almost see the characters in front of you. The book talks about a 15-year-old boy hauled onto a path of a much older woman’s life. It’s refreshing but dark, simple but philosophical. Murakami places peculiar main characters at the heart of his story, characters that you find yourself questioning but at the same time noticing vast similarities between them and the usual person.

Murakami has a way of making you appreciate the discomfort that some parts of the story may bring. He tackles social occurrences that could be pretty controversial and he discusses them with such nonchalance that it makes you think about the values and lessons that you’ve collected in your life. His books have always made flip the lens of the character onto myself and wonder what I would do in such a situation and why I would react so differently.

If you’re into fiction that roots themselves just as equally into the real world as it does to an imaginary one, check this book out!