kafka on the shore

Have you ever sat in an airport terminal looking aloof and mysterious, wandered the hallways of a hotel barefoot thinking "this is cozy", pondered on the second to last day of a five day trip to Some Place and thought "should I... move here?"

If the concept of liminal spaces was a book, it would be Kafka on the Shore. In a short sentence it's a Freudian coming of age story which uses magical realism as the preferred way to communicate the inner worlds of the protagonists. The whole thing feels unreal and impermanent.

Murakami's a weird author. His protagonists are kind of boring on the surface, but enough of a blank slate and just dysfunctional enough for a reader to project their own definition of "relatable" onto them. Take that and juxtapose it with the vibe of Kafka, which is strange, surreal, and feels like a lucid dream complete with sexy scenes and the literal Colonel Sanders (the KFC guy), and you've got a story that sucks you in without being interested in answering any of your questions.

I've read this once already and am in the middle of re-reading it. I'll be honest with you the first time I read it I had no idea what the fuck was happening, but the conclusion of the book still left me feeling good, with a pleasant feeling of having gone on a quiet vacation for a bit, and like I'd discovered something about myself.

This is generally how Murakami books go for me. Kafka just happens to be my favorite right now because it really is "liminal spaces: the book".