Kafka on the Shore

Oddly enough, on the busiest rotation so far, I've found time to read for pleasure (of course, I have yet to open up Schwartz's Principles of Surgery). Before Kafka on the Shore, I had only read a few of Murakami's short stories which I highly enjoyed. He's a prolific writer and I decided to start with this book, a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender" (John Updike). This was an excellent read. I think its impetus for me lies in its lack of boundaries. The book dares to go everywhere, pushing our conceptions of morality, identity, reality, and sex. Its pace and flow propel you through the suspension of disbelief, the magical reality, and help you connect with the strange characters of this book. Murakami also demonstrates a breadth of humanistic knowledge, covering aspects of literature, music, philosophy, and history. It accomplishes that very difficult task of opening up many riddles, offering few answers, and yet leaving the reader completely satisfied.

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