Kafka on the Shore
By Haruki Murakami
Why this book?
There are some labyrinths you enter, in which you want to remain lost. While simultaneously longing for a way out. Haruki Murakami’s beguiling masterpiece, Kafka on the Shore, qualifies as that sort of labyrinth-as-novel. A coming-of-age odyssey with a metaphysical slant, the journey which the teen protagonist, Kafka, undertakes, lures the reader through a kaleidoscopic realm steeped in pop culture, romance, shadow-play, family trauma, and ultimately, salvation. When I finished this novel, or found myself ejected from the labyrinth back into the “real” world, echoes of wonder and intrigue continued to haunt and inspire me for a long time afterward.
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