book: Haruki Murakami 1 Jan 2002

Kafka on the shore

"Real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender"

Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ Umibe no Kafuka?) is a 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. John Updike described it as a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender".[1] Since its 2005 English language release (2006 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize-winning translation by Philip Gabriel), the novel has received mostly positive reviews and critical acclaim, including a spot on The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2005 and the World Fantasy Award.

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Kafkaontheshore - This is the front cover art for the book Kafka on the Shore written by Haruki Murakami. The book cover art copyright is believed to belong to the publisher, Kodansha or the cover artist. Kodansha

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."