000			a
999			_c29948 _d29948
008			200302b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780099494096
082			_a895.636 _bMUR
100			_aMurakami, Haruki
245			_aKafka on the shore
260			_bVintage Books _c2006 _aTokyo
300			_a615 p. _c18 cm
365			_b499.00 _cINR _d00
520			_aThis magnificent new novel has a similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch the reader. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle-yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.
650			_aFantasy fiction
650			_aNovel
650			_aRelationships
650			_aInterpersonal relations
650			_aFiction
650			_aJapanese fiction
650			_aFantasy
650			_aJapan Fiction
650			_aParent and child
710			_aGabriel, Philip
942			_2ddc _cBK