By the author of "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle". "...postmodern fiction that's actually fund to read..."

Released in postal trade to weesisj in Scotland.

All the way from USA and the book is already here! Thanks a lot oldbroad! Will read asap and let you know what I thought of it.

I enjoyed reading most of the book, there are some bits that are a bit long. But in the main I can now understand all the fuss that is made about this author. The modern Japanese Oedipus story is worth a read. Thanks again to Oldbroad for having made it possible for me to read this book.
Will have a think about what to do with this book now.

This book will be continuing it's BC journey as a bookray.
Participants so far are:

rmg (UK)
xanapeq (UK)
Sobergirl (Finland)
CatharinaL (Finland)
-Claudia- (Portugal) Has bought the book herself, so is no longer taking part in this Bookring..
samulli (Germany)
E-J-V (France)
queensknob (USA) Asked to be taken off the list
SqueakyChu (USA)
lightwavz (USA)-
pammykn (FL, USA)
husky (Germany)

Book is currently in America, but will have to travel back to Europe afterwards.

Received with thanks.

Will get going on it this lunchtime!

This was an enjoyable book but very, very strange!

Everything, we are told repeatedly, is a metaphor, but a metaphor for what? I'm happy with things like:
thick forest = confusion
shore = boarder between life and death
library = store of memories
but what about the speaking to cats business? What about the strange man/woman/gay/straight Oshima, what does he represent? What's the evil Jonny Walker/Colonel Saunders thing supposed to be? Was Kafka's curse fulfilled or not?

I've done a lot of thinking whilst reading this, but most of it seems to have been in circles!

Sometimes I think I would like to be able to talk to cats like Mr Nakata, then I remember the contemptuous expression my own cat usually wears and think that perhaps it's best not to understand them.

The book has just arrived. Thanks rmg for sending it. I've contacted Sobergirl for her address. In the mean time, my boyfriend will also read it, so it might take a bit extra time to send it.
Thanks weesisj for organizing this!
Take care.

I've finally finished reading this book. I'm happy I did it, but it was a hard process, especially because I've only been reading a couple of hours per week.
I didn't like the book, to be honest. Perhaps if I had read it more rapidly, it would have been easier to enjoy it. The story develops too slow to be appreciated this way.
Throughout the book I felt like giving up, but I really wanted to know what it was all about. I actually liked the ending, but was expecting a bit more from the event in the woods during WW2.
On the whole I thought it was a bit heavy going, not only how every detail was thoroughly described but also the constant citations. Everyone was always quoting someone in Kafka's part of the story...
Also, I think some of the writing used was a bit pretentious (sorry if I've offended anyone). For example:

"Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil - they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box."

«"I'd love to go to Spain someday," Oshima says.
"Why Spain?
"To fight in the Spanish Civil War."
"But that ended a long time ago."
"I know that. Lorca died, and Hemingway survived," Oshima says. "But I still have the right to go to Spain and be a part of the Spanish Civil War."»

«But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me.»

Finally, I have to admit the main reason I wanted to read Murakami, was to learn a bit about Japan. There are references to events, people and religion, specific to Japan. I appreciated this. And there is huge loneliness in all the characters' lives... Does it have to do with it being set in Japan? I leave this question to be answered by other books by other Japanese authors.

Thanks weesisj for organizing this bookring. And again, sorry for the delay. Will send it tomorrow to Sobergirl in Finland.

PS: perhaps someone can explain why this is considered postmodernist literature in a future entry.

The book arrived with me this morning! Will start reading asap!

This story was a bit too strange for me.
I read about 200 pages and realized I really didn't care about the story, what would happen to the characters, that's definitely a sign for me to give and move on to more interesting books.
However thanks a lot for arranging the bookray! I will send this to CatharinaL asap!

The book arrived this morning; thanks for sending, Sobergirl! I'll start reading asap.

[25/05/06] I'm setting off on my vacation tomorrow, and I'm taking Kafka with me to read on the plane to New York. An extra addition to the total travel mileage of the book :-)

The book did travel with me all the way to New York and back... I finished reading it last night. Wow! A marvelous reading experience... On the back cover, Laura Miller of The New York Times Book Review commented that it's the rare artist who makes us feel as if we're actually personally dreaming the story. Well, first of all I'd like to say this couldn't be any truer in my case. Incredibly, I'd had a very vivid & enjoyable dream of that white thing coming out of Mr. Nakata on the night before I started reading the book two weeks ago! I still remember the dream well--it was like watching a good horror/action flick and it was technically of a very good quality... My hair stood on its end when I got to the description of the very same creature in Kafka :-)

Kafka is a truly original kaleidoscope of Greek classics, the subconscious becoming conscious, mundane city life, and abundant intertexts, among other things. There's the very same, unmistakable feel of myths and mystery, sexuality and sensuality as in Sputnik Sweetheart. But Kafka is far more complete, more comprehensive & ambitious, although it lacks some of the minimalistic intimacy of Sputnik. Not as rigorously ultra-allegorical as the brain-hacking cyberpunk of Hard-Boiled Wonderland, either--I loved the way the loose ends in this book gave room for the reader's imagination. Plenty of it was actually formed/created outside the actual printed text, by the reader--this brought in the 'dream' effect.

I got to thinking about postmodernism: does the mere idea of an Oedipean time warp and a weird narrative really make this particular book postmodern? No. I think it's rather the underlying concept of a book constructed in a certain fragmentary fashion, similar to postmodern visual arts. I'm thinking visual arts here just because of the way my brain operates--I tend to translate texts into visual colors, shapes, structures, and relations rather than thinking in terms of musical compositions. Murakami, in turn, is noted for his references to and parallels with music in particular. Any attempted analogies of mine may thus prove slightly off the track... Anyway, what I see is a postmodern warp, something like Kandinsky-style modernism accelerated into another dimension. Anselm Kiefer and Pollock, maybe?

The borrowing, the referring, the twisting, the parodying of many different genres, styles, and arts, and blending them all into a self-referring collage of which every reader forms his/her own unique experience and meaning... that's what I love about postmodernism. In a way, I felt as if this book actually worked on a meta-level in relation to postmodernism itself: the self-conscious narrative incorporated just about everything, as if all of the postmodern issues and philosophy were on display in one form or another. Art as process, interaction, intertextuality, myths, mimicry, borrowing, pluralism, "the fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents", subverted order, sense of disorientation, confusion, fragmentation and decentered self, multiple, conflicting identities, androgyny, alternative family units, new ideas of history, nostalgia, pop culture & hybrid cultural forms, consumerism, content transforming into styles... Add to this list the composition and the little details of the book, and voilà! Considering the novel's humorous side, I'd even be tempted to read some of these as ironical/parodical representations of the style/genre itself.

I'm adoring Murakami more and more every day. Thank you so much for this bookring, weesisj! I'm mailing the book to samulli Monday next week.

The book arrived here today. I'll start reading as soon as I am finished with my current one.

Wow, I wish I was only half as eloquent as Mr. Murakami himself to be able to express how much I enjoyed this book.
I didn't have very high expectations, because I've read Naoko's Smile by the same author earlier this year and it left me completely unimpressed (to be honest, I can't even rememeber what it was about or if I even finished it). And although I am not at all a fan of Franz Kafka, I think Kafka Tamura will stay with me for a long time. Just like Mr. Nakata, who was able to talk to cats and stones (I don't know which one of these abilities I found more impressive).
Murakami's writing style definitely takes some getting used to, but the story here just carried me away. I’m sure I didn’t get half of the underlying meaning of everything, but I don’t care, because it never was one of my hobbies to analyze a book to death. As long as the story can stand on its own, it’s all right with me. And this one certainly can.

Thanks weesisj for sharing it.
I already have E-J-V's address and the book will go in the mail this afternoon.

I came back from my trip today and found this book in my mailbox. I've been wanting to read this book for a long time and my vacation isn't over yet :-D

Thank you, samulli, for sending it.

It took me a while to read this book, because a lot of things are going on in my life right now.

I really liked it, even though I'm not sure I understood all the 'hidden meanings' of the story. This book will certainly keep my mind busy for a while :-)

16/08/06: Sent to SqueakyChu today. Enjoy!

The book arrived today! I love Murakami's writing and look forward to reading this book.

Thank you so much, E-J-V, for the lovely postcard and greetings from Paris!

Wow, was this ever a great book! Murakami does not disappoint. Rich in symbolism, and quite fun to read, I loved the parallel stories which intersected in the end.

I like the idea of talking to cats. Wish I could do that.

The characters of Johnny Walker and Colonel Sanders were great. Those two reminded me of Steve Pastis' comic strip "Pearls Before Swine" in which Pastis often borrows characters from other comic strips. It's fun.

I like the way the book ended, although I was surprised at the end to remember that this was the story of a 15-year-old boy. By the time I got to that point, I thought he seemed so much more mature.

I can't wait to get into other Murakami writing. Thank you, weesisj, for making this book available for me and having patience with me as it took me a while to read it. Murakami really is for savoring rather than skipping quickly through the pages.

The book is now in the mail to lightwavz.

Received the book last week and I am currently reading. Murakami is in my Top5 of writers and I am sure I will love this one. Also, thanks, SqueakyChu, for the innovative bookmark! I'll have to start sending these along with my books too! A review when I have finished...

At first I rushed through this book because I loved it so much, then I slowed down because I did not want it to end! I also ran the full gamut of emotions... very cathartic this one was! I bought a personal copy so that I can sit down and think about it further. My favorite idea in this book was the forest. Though I would love to have the ability to talk to cats, I would really hate to have met Johnnie Walker and know what he knew. I'm glad that thread of the story ended early on!

I have pammykn's address, so this one is moving along in today's mail! Thanks for the ray, weesisj!

Thanks -- rec'd today. Look forward to reading!

Discovered I have a copy of this book so am sending off o husky. Thanks.

Thank you pammykn! This is the third Murakami book I' m going to get to know, and concluding from the first two it will be a great adventure and much fun...

I don't really liked this book, though I admired the other novels by Murakami which I've read so far.
I especially like Murakami's ability to transform ordinary (though somehow interesting) persons and ordinary lives slowly and almost without you realize it into something otherworldly, but in this case the strange things are there from th very beginning. And the story has a lot of crueling moments, but none of them is really that much discomforting - it is just too far away somehow. And in many aspects, the book lacks a special atmosphere - the part taking place in that forest misses any atmosphere at all, in my opinion. But OK, I have my own ideas about how a forest looks and feels like and they obviously differ from what Murakami wants to tell here.
The only character really interesting to me is Mr Hoshino, who is so normal and easily to picture that I can relate to him. And his behavior is closest to that of a normal person, even later on when at the end of the novel he has this very strange fight.
The Colonel Sanders / Johnny Walker character I didn't understand at all, but maybe that's simply because I'm not familiar with those icons of american advertisment industry...
Still, I managed to get through the whole book and I didn't think for a single moment about skipping pages. So at least Murakamis intriguing language got me.

book is crossing the ocean again... on the way to rustyteader2 in Canada; and moving on to aunt-sophie after.

Arrived in the mail today, I am just finishing up another book right now for a bookray, as soon as I am done that I will get this one started.

I was PM'ed and asked if I was thinking of having this as a bookray, and since it's on so many wishlists and the 1001 books you MUST read before you die list, I will start another ray for this book!

BookRay guidelines:

* Please journal the book once when you receive it and once when you are done with it and it's about to leave your hands.
* Please PM the next person in line and send it off to them (Give the next reader a week to reply to your PM. If there's no reply, please PM me (so I can make a note in the list) and then PM the next reader in line
* If at all possible please try to read the book within 4-6 weeks (I don't care if it takes you longer to finish, but please PM me, so I won't worry)
* Most of all enjoy the book - - this is not a school assignment :)

PARTICIPANTS: (subject to change)
1. RustyReader2 (CANADA) - finished
2. aunt-sophie (CANADA) - finished
3. GateGypsy (CANADA) - int'l
4. totoroandmei (JAPAN) - surface int'l
5. meexia (SINGAPORE) - singapore -- has own copy
6. sprockitt (SINGAPORE) - int'l -- skipped
7. boirina (PORTUGAL) - prefers Europe -- BOOK HERE!!!
8. Qimp (NETHERLANDS) - prefers Europe
9. cats-eye (ENGLAND) - int'l
10. celticstar (ENGLAND) - int'l
11. NICNIC2 (ENGLAND) - int'l
12. Bjorg (ICELAND) - int'l
13. CarynPic (USA) - USA only
14. olered (USA) - Canada/USA
16. literarylover (USA) - prefers USA
17. rooshill (USA) - prefers USA
18. Dusties (USA) - Canada/USA
19. passiontoread (USA) - int'l
20. titihood (CANADA)
21. ajsmom (CANADA) - int'l
22. Mary-T (GREMANY) - int'l
23. okyrhoe (GREECE) - int'l
24. nawoo82 (AUSTRALIA)
25. froggirlwendy (AUSTRALIA) - prefers Australia

***The last person on the list gets to keep the book!!!! Please try to keep it going some how, be it another bookring/ray or RABCK...

This book took me a lot longer to read than I had hoped. It took a while to catch my attention and then for a part in the middle of the book it was hard to put down, then it filtered off towards the end again.

Will be sending off to aunt-sophie in the next couple of days.

I caught the book earlier today... and I've already started reading it. Right now it's still a bit confusing, with the different stories, but I expect it will become clearer as I go along...

I've just finished reading the book and... it's hard to put my thoughts into words. It was a weird book, but mostly weird in a fascinating way. Even at the end, nothing makes sense, and you're not quite sure of all the links and meanings between the different parts of the story and characters, but still, you always want to go on. Sorry not to be original with my comparison, but reading it did feel like being in a dream, with strikingly realistic bits and some totally off-the-wall and unexpected. I'll definitely look for other books by Haruki Murakami.

Mailed to GateGypsy on July 11.

What a wonderfully well-travelled book! I have been really looking forward to this one -- I've heard such great things about Murakami's work. Still, I have a stack of bookring books that arrived before this one, so it'll have to wait. I'll try to get to this as quickly as possible, but it may still take me 6-8 weeks to turn this one around. I'll keep you posted!

Thank you so much, RustyReader2, for raying this out to us!

Firstly, please let me apologise for taking so long to get to this book. You've been so wonderfully patient and I'm very glad for your indulgence because I really did enjoy this book!
I started reading it maybe two weeks ago, but between research assignments in all of my college courses, I had gotten only four or five chapters in. This week I put my back out somehow, so I had lots of resting/leisure time that I couldn't spend glued to my computer (it's much easier to read on one's back than it is to type!) and I finally made the mad run through to the end of the book. As I went, I tried to relate the basic essence of the story to my fiance. When I'd started, I was telling him about how very uniformly odd and "out of left field" modern Japanese Literature seems to me (at least all of it that I've had the chance to read), and how Kafka seemed obsessed with his desire to find his mother and his sister. Blair bet me $1 that his sister would turn out to be his mother, though I told him chances were better that he'd find his mom and she'd be a ghost or something like that. (Hey, I'm good at this guessing!)
I thought the added "and your sister" part of the oedipal curse was going a bit far, and I did not buy how it was resolved. (but how can you "go too far" in a book like this?)
Like nearly everyone else who has read this book, I too thought of how nice it might be to be able to speak with cats. (I love that most of them said, when the found Nakata could understand them, "So, you can speak?" That's probably how any of us would react if one of our cats just opened up and said "Hi," too.) I wondered, as well, if I were suddenly struck down mentally, as Nakata was, would I be willing to accept and find solace in conversing with cats, or would I be bitter? He was most likely wonderfully lucky (if he can be considered so at all) that he didn't really remember what it was like to have his full faculties, so he couldn't feel such keen regret at no longer having them. Nakata was a wonderful character, and I really enjoyed his storyline ... all, except the Johnnie Walker thing. Gyack, that was rather aweful. Speaking of which, I didn't understand why, if Nakata killed Johnnie Walker, and that turned out to be Kafka's father, and it was all over the news, what happened to all the cats? The cat killing wasn't a figment of Nakata's imagination. Didn't the police find them? And were Johnnie and the Colonel the same creature? Or, why did The Boy Named Crow encounter Johnnie in limbo? (I would have rather never seen him again, frankly.)
(And, outside of all that confusion, I wonder if Johnnie Walker Whiskey took offense to their icon being labelled "infamous cat killer" or if KFC resented their image being turned into a somewhat esoteric back-street pimp? I mean, certainly if you use someone's material you have to ask permission, don't you? Or are the rules different if you write in a different language?)

Still, despite my sense of confusion, irritation at loose ends, etc, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I quite liked being introduced to thinkers and music, and I hardly minded the quoting at all. I learned some rather interesting things from the biographies summarized, and was very pleased when the philosophy student quoted Bergson's Matter and Memory "The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory." I didn't feel particularly "talked down to" by this book (though I have had that sense in others and couldn't finish, myself, so I understand the feeling.) I enjoyed some of the turns of phrase, like on page 266, during the storm, there was "Unimpressive thunder, a lazy dwarf trampling on a drum." Always in translations I wonder about how much of what is said is truely the author's intended phrasing, or how much is adapted by the translator. Like, I know that when Nakata talks about his "sub-city" and that his brothers work for a "minis-tree," I understand the point being made, but know for a fact those words are different in Japanese, so I wonder what plays were emplpoyed in the original to make the same point.

Anyway, again, I am thrilled to have had the chance to read this, so thank you for sharing. Even if it was confusing and out in left-field, I certainly feel that this book was more worth the reading than some of the other 1001 books I've been exposed to recently. The book shall be on its way back to Japan to visit with totoroandmei as soon as I can get it to a post office.

In the post as of Dec 21st. Had to send it slow-mail, sorry!

Thanks. Hope to get through this soon and pass it on.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

It is finally continuing on it's journey.

The book got here today. Thanks!

The book left for Qimp last Thursday.

Thanks for the opportunity to read it.

Kafka arrived on my doorstep yesterday, safe and sound. Thank you for mailing the book, boirina!

A short journal entry (and an apology) to keep you updated: I moved house on February 28th, and the unpacking of boxes isn't progressing as fast as I hoped. I have no idea which box Kafka on the shore is in, either. So, I'm sorry, but the book will have to stay here a bit longer... thank you all for your patience.

Update 10 June: Kafka is unpacked and I started reading this week.

What a strange book! It's my first experience with Murakami, so I wasn't prepared for his style of writing. The funny thing is that although there was a lot in the book I didn't understand, it was compelling reading. The characters in the book were all very interesting. And how nice it must be to have such a library, where one can sit and read quietly!

Books which are written in a foreign language other than English I usually try to read in my native language, Dutch. I think here I made an exception because there was no bookring of this book in Dutch. I regretted this decision because the English in this book felt a bit funny. There were a lot of 'street' words. In the parts written from the viewpoint of Kafka, this isn't so strange, but in other parts, it felt quite unnatural. However, because I'm not a native English speaker, I thought I might be wrong in this. But it seems I'm not the only one who felt this way: "However vague its allusions and overbearing its pretensions, however needlessly jive its English translation ("Jeez Louise"), this book makes for a beguiling and enveloping experience." Janet Maslin wrote in the New York Times.

Thank you for organising this bookring, RustyReader2!

28 June: I PM'd cats-eye for her address. She replied that she has a copy of her own, so I sent a PM to celticstar.

10 July: no reply from celticstar. I sent a second PM in case she didn't receive the first one.

19 July: still no reply. PM sent to NICNIC2.

20 July: NICNIC2 just finished reading another bookring of Kafka on the Shore. PM-ing Bjorg.

22 July: Received Bjorg's address, will be sending the bookring on later this week.

The book has just arrived:) I have 3 other bookrings here at the moment but I will get to this one as soon as I can:)

In my opinion, this is not his best book! I have read 3 of his books and I loved all of them though they were all a bit strange;) but I just did not get this one. Perhaps I´m not smart enough???

I have PM´ed CarynPic twice but am still waiting for an answer, will wait a bit longer before I contact the next person.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

The bookring will now keep on travelling and next go to olered :)

Bjorg, Thank you so much. The book arrived safely and in very good time I thought. It seems to have had a long travel and I'm anxious to read and send on the rest of it's journey. Thank you again.

This book got others stacked on top of it and i'm just starting it. Am very sorry...but will read as quickly as i can.

I found it hard to get started, or 'hooked', into this book...but once I got going I enjoyed it and certainly didn't want to put the book down. There were occasional lags but not many. I enjoyed all the symbolism, am sure I didn't get it all. It was my first experience with the author Murakami and I don't feel a need to search his other works out. However I am grateful to RustyReader2 for the opportunity to read this one.
Am ready to send to the next person on the list - literarylover.

Well, here it is in Foresthill, Ca and I'm fascinated by the journal entries I've read so far. I actually stopped about halfway down the list to spare myself any big spoilers, but I've been hooked for sure! It seems people either love this book and can't say enough about it, or they just plain don't get it and don't like it. I guess we'll soon find out where I stand...

This was my first read by Haruki Murakami and I was (happily) surprised. It's beautiful, terrible, intricate, mesmerizing, and mysterious. :) I know I'm a bit short on adjectives, can you forgive me? :)
I loved the seemingly random plotlines that all connected eventually, like the web of life. The "loose ends" that seemed to bother others didn't bother me at all. I came to a feeling of acceptance as I read this book; like nothing is wrong or strange or not-enough, it just is. You don't have to understand it all.
Much to ponder here: past lives, parallel existence, karma, love, evil, fate, chance, identity...
A very satisfying, and despite its often "difficult" subject matter, a somehow soothing read.

PMing Dusties to get this well-travelled, and well-worn, book on its way.

Going off in trade to someone in Chicago