Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami are favorites of mine. To combine them into one blog post seems slightly odd - they are not part of a series and are complex enough that reducing them down to a few sentences seems like a disservice. But what these have in common - for me - is that they were the first two books I read by Murakami and that they give me the feeling that Murakami did not let reality interfere with his story. Unexplained magical/mystical events/people/situations occur over and over again in these novels, always purposeful and interesting - but rarely (maybe never...) offered up with the kind of attention/logic/explanation that a science fiction book would put forth when something extraordinary happens. In fact these events almost seem 'normal' in the flow of the book, just another part of the story, of course one of the characters is talking to a cat - why wouldn't we he be? It would almost be odd if he could not talk to the cats... I certainly love when a book offers up something original - these books certainly do that!

Rating: 5 of 5 First Read Date: 2008

Amazon - Kafka on the Shore Amazon - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

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