RaveThe Seattle TimesMurakami creates openings into alternate universes. Sardines and mackerel rain down from the skies; brand names like Colonel Sanders and Johnnie Walker walk the streets as living spirits. Erotic ghosts, or real women reliving past memories, come to you in waking dreams. Much of the time you really have no idea where Murakami is taking you, but you buy into the surrealism and odd mysterious beauty … Kafka on the Shore is an epic metaphysical mystery that is firmly grounded in a modern post-industrial Japan. But Kafka and Nakata follow visions that are from an older Japan, a world of animism and fate. It is this psychic tension between the ancient and the new that keeps us hooked into the dual narratives.
